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Day of the Oprichnik
  • Published: 15 November 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241355114
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $37.99

Day of the Oprichnik

Formats & editions
EBook
2 Aug 2018
Paperback
15 Nov 2018
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Haunting, terrifying and hilarious, The Day of the Oprichnik is a dazzling novel and a fierce critique of life in the New Russia

Moscow 2028: Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, oprichnik, member of the czar's inner circle of trusted courtiers, rouses himself from a drunken stupor and prepares for another day of debauchery, violence, terror and beauty. In this New Russia, futuristic technology combine with the draconian world of Ivan the Terrible to create a dystopia chillingly akin to reality. Over the twenty-four-hour span of the novel, Komiaga will rape, pillage and torture, in the name of the czar he fears and adores. Shimmering with invention, fierce social commentary and razor-sharp wit, Day of the Oprichnik imagines a near future too disturbing to contemplate and too close to reality to ignore.
  • Published: 15 November 2018
  • ISBN: 9780241355114
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $37.99
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About the author

Vladimir Sorokin

Vladimir Sorokin was born in a small town outside Moscow in 1955. He trained as an engineer but turned to art and writing, becoming a major presence in the Moscow underground of the 1980s. His work was banned in the Soviet Union, and his first novel, The Queue, was published in France in 1985. In 1992, Their Four Hearts was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize; in 1999, the publication of the controversial novel Blue Lard led to public demonstrations against the book; in 2001, Sorokin received the Andrei Bely Award for outstanding contributions to Russian literature; in 2013, The Blizzard was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages. His most recent novel is Berlin Adenauerplatz. He lives in Berlin.
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Also by Vladimir Sorokin

Fairy Tale
Blue Lard
Red Pyramid
Telluria
The Blizzard
Ice Trilogy
The Queue
See all

Praise for Day of the Oprichnik

Vladimir Sorokin [is] Russia's most inventive contemporary author

Masha Gessen, New York Times Book Review

Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia's greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best. Day of the Oprichnik is a haunting and terrifying vision of modern Russia projected two decades into the future - or maybe not the future at all. A joy to read - more entertaining, dynamic, engaging, and deeply hilarious than a dystopian novel has any right to be

Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love Story

Anyone who wants to learn more about Russia and what could be the outcome of [Vladimir] Putin's rule should read the book. It's dark and dystopian, but it's a part of our life

Garry Kasparov, Time

Compelling . . . Devastating . . . Powerful . . . In Day of the Oprichnik, [Sorokin] combines futurological invention with political archaism to vicious satirical effect . . . It's as if hi-tech limbs had been grafted onto the torso of early modern statecraft: Wolf Hall meets William Gibson

Tony Wood, London Review of Books