New York Times Bestseller Winner of the World Fantasy Award One of New York Magazines 10 Best Books of the Year One of NPRs 5 Best Works of Foreign Fiction The celebrated scary fairy tales of Russias preeminent contemporary fiction writer--the author of the prizewinning memoir about growing up in Stalinist Russia, The Girl from the Metropol Hotel Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia--or anywhere else in the world--today.