Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov

In “Pushkin Hills”, struggling writer Boris Alikhanov becomes a guide at Pushkin’s rural estate, encountering absurd colleagues, snobbish visitors, and ex‑KGB officers – while trying to avoid his wife’s plea to emigrate. Darkly comic and tinged with melancholy, it’s a witty, bittersweet meditation on ambition, exile and the writer’s place in the world.

An unsuccessful writer and an inveterate alcoholic, Boris Alikhanov is running out of money and has recently divorced from his wife Tatyana, who intends to emigrate to the West with their daughter Masha. The prospect of a summer job as a tourist guide at the Pushkin Hills preserve offers him hope of bringing back some balance into his existence, but during his stay in the rural estate of Mikhaylovskoye, Alikhanov’s life continues to unravel.

Populated with unforgettable characters, such as Alikhanov’s fellow guides Mitrofanov and Pototsky and the KGB officer Belyaev, and presented here for the first time in the English language, Pushkin Hills is arguably Dovlatov’s most personal work and a poignant portrayal of the Russian attitude towards life and art.

'A desperately hilarious, flippantly tragic gem. Read it – and weep. And laugh. But read it' – A.D. Miller

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