Stalin is dead - Rachel Shihor

\u201cRachel Shihor is the opposite of a misty-eyed writer,\u201d writes Mona Reiserer in the Quarterly Conversation. \u201cHer writing penetrates to the truth of the aches and anxieties all people share, though they must generally suffer them alone.\u201d \u201cThere is no question that she is a great writer,\u201d Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love, confirms, \u201cOnly a master could make such originality feel inevitable. The only question is why so few people have had the chance to read her.\u201d In Stalin is Dead, Shihor offers a medley of aphorisms, flash fiction, and short stories, carving out a slice of the world in which Kafka would feel at home. The characters that inhabit this world-reckless she-goats, morose fish, somnambulistic theologians, poignant old ladies, dying dictators, and dead poets, to name just a few-have nothing in common save for the fact that they instruct us on the human condition. Available at last in Ornan Rotem's translation, these edifying stories, with all their sadness and humor, are a writer's tour de force and a reader's delight.