Incidences

This wonderfully inventive collection of stories presents the writing of Russian absurdist Daniil Kharms at its vibrant, perplexing best. The book is composed of short miniatures: strange, funny, dream-like fragments ? many of which the author called ?incidents? ? that tend to feature accidents, falling, chance violence and sudden death. An outlaw classic banned by Soviet censors until the 1980s, Incidences vividly conveys the precarious nature of life in Stalin?s Russia. Writing in the 1920s as one of a group called the Society for Real Art, Kharms was first arrested in 1931, and told that he could only publish writing for children. Irrepressible, he was sent to the gulag in 1941 and died of starvation in a prison hospital a year later. With this new edition of Incidences we can rediscover a Russian writer whose bold writing and tragic death are an urgent reminder of the deranged spirit of his times.

About the Author :
Daniil Kharms was born in 1906. His name, a pseudonym, reflects his love for Sherlock Holmes. Kharms was arrested in 1931 for deflecting the people from the building of socialism by means of trans-verse verses and told that he could only publish writing for children. By the end of the decade, even his writing for children was considered unfit for publication and in 1941 Kharms was re-arrested and sent to the gulag. He died of starvation in a prison hospital in 1942.

Review :
?Luminous fragments of the avant-garde? Times Literary Supplement ?Just one tip: Don't read this book if you're normal - you won't like it. Honestly. If you drive a Volvo, watch Eastenders, listen to Jamie Cullum or shop at Debenhams, you'll be baffled by this book. You stick to John Grisham; you'll be safe with him? Amazon.co.uk customer review ?A puzzlingly beautiful monument to a minor master? Booklist ?With remarkable precision and fluid language, the stories capture everyday tension in a land where an innocent knock on the door might mean entrapment in a bureaucratic maze or even death at the hands of the military? New York Times Book Review ?Brilliant, paranoid parables of the Stalin regime? Guardian ?Very short, often hilariously funny but dark and seemingly illogical stories? Very little of his work ever made it into print; the fact that enough of it survived either by word of mouth or in carefully guarded manuscripts makes this wonderful collection something of a miracle? Think of Beckett, only with sharper humour? Or, the best of Kafka distilled into the smallest possible space? Independent ?Kharms? prose miniatures are of the highest quality and offer despairing commentary on Soviet life? Scotland on Sunday ?A Shape-shifting collection of stories and fragments? Kharms? dislocated hallucinatory vision of a St Petersburg where the fantastical sits side by side with the mudane is an evocative response to a totalitarian state, yet it also recalls Gogol?s equally contorted, agonised view of his native city ? and, like the latter, is steeped in a rich, uncanny humour? Metro ?The only way to survive in this world is to laugh. The worse it gets, the more you laugh. Kharms is the master of dark laughter, of the laughter of relief as you realise the events he describes can?t possibly be true? a celebration of meaninglessness? Marina Lewycka, Daily Telegraph