The New Adventures of Helen

“One of Russia’s best living writers . . . Her tales inhabit a borderline between this world and the next.” —The New York Times

At first glance, the stories in The New Adventures of Helen seems simple, even child-like, but a deep reading reveals satire and darkness manifested through classic fairy tale tropes characteristically upended by Petrushevskaya. These “adult fairy tales” ask deep questions about gender, love, history, memory, and the future, taking place in times between history and the now. These stories, quirky but yet inspired by a confident hopefulness, will inspire and provoke English-speaking readers across the globe.




Genre: Literary Fiction

"In her best work Petrushevskaya steers a sure course between neutrally recording the degraded life of the Soviet-era urban underclass and ratcheting up the squalor of that life for the mere pleasure of it. She does so by the steadiness of her moral compass and the gaiety of her prose." - J M Coetzee

"A master of the Russian short story." - Olga Grushin

"One of the greatest writers in Russia today and a vital force in contemporary world literature." - Ken Kalfus

"A master of the short story form, a kindred spirit to writers like Angela Carter and Yumiko Kurahashi." - Kelly Link

"Petrushevskaya's fiction [offers] a glimpse of what it means to be a human being, living sometimes in bitter misery, sometimes in unexpected grace." - Jenny Offill

"There is no other writer who can blend the absurd and the real in such a scary, amazing and wonderful way." - Lara Vapnyar