On Women

New stories by Vladimir Sorokin — about women: in war and in a cruel world, in circumstances hostile to the female nature. A guard in a concentration camp, a future star of progressive art, a little girl in a Soviet hospital, a young genius chess player, a perestroika student, and other heroines of the collection are unlike each other but share one commonality: the experienced violence irreversibly changes them, but does not erase it, only sharpens their individuality. Sorokin remains himself — builds carnival dystopias, juggles quotes from canonical Russian literature, and materializes metaphors — while continuing to move in a new direction. Increasing empathy for witnesses and involuntary participants in great geopolitical dramas, storytelling and lyricism, set by “The Blizzard” and continued in “Doctor Garin,” are especially noticeable in “De feminis.” Sensitive to the spirit of the times and invariably ahead of time in his assessments, Vladimir Sorokin clearly speaks out against the dehumanization of antagonists.