The Body of the Soul: Stories

Ulitskaya (Just the Plague) is an award winning contemporary Russian writer, television host, and political activist. Recipient of the prestigious Russian Booker Prize, she is also a celebrated short story writer and this new collection (translated by Peaver and Volokhonsky) is a moody and slightly mystical glance at life, loneliness, and cadavers. There is a dry Raymond Carver-esque element, a sedate and slightly distanced tone, that steps back from the drama; it is a style that focuses not on the tension or the psychological fireworks, but on the mundane repetitions of a life filling up with moments and mysteries. There is also a strangely surreal undercurrent here, and elements of Garcia Márquez and Chekhov lurking in these quiet and curious tales about gender issues, mortality, and the unfulfilled promise of an Armenian sorceress. These are stories filled with the quiet untenable tension of dreams, desires and decisions, the tensions that hold us together, without letting us get too close…broken families, broken people, silent lives.