The Bridge Over The Neroch And Other Works: Introduced by Jon McGregor (Paperback) - Leonid Tsypkin

Experience the absurdities and tragedies of life in the Soviet Union in this extraordinary story collection by the lost Russian master behind cult classic Summer in Baden-Baden .

"Everything is always topsy-turvy here," he said.

A small town in the Ural mountains is the backdrop to the heartbreak and joys of a Russian-Jewish family, witnessing romance and illness, funerals and friendships, and the catastrophe of wartime invasion.

Amidst the snowy peaks of the Ararat valley, a married couple from Moscow admire the view from their hotel balcony, unprepared for the absurdist realities of tourism in the USSR.

From chandeliered metro stations to institute bus stops, monolithic skyscrapers and cockroach-infested apartments, Leonid Tsypkin evokes the tragicomedy of Soviet existence in transcendental prose.

About the Author

Leonid Tsypkin was born in Minsk in 1926 to Russian-Jewish parents, both physicians. He is the acclaimed author of short stories as well as the classic novel Summer in Baden-Baden. His writing was the culmination of a clandestine literary vocation: as a distinguished medical researcher by profession, he never saw a page published in his lifetime. This manuscript was smuggled out of the Soviet Union in 1981, and first published in a Russian-emigre weekly in the US. It has since been translated into over twenty languages. Tsypkin, who was twice denied permission to leave the Soviet Union, died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1982.