Alexander Genis

Dovlatov and Surroundings is a literary ode by one of the most consequential late 20th-century Russian writers, Alexander Genis, to another: Sergei Dovlatov. Though the book's focus is ostensibly the man himself, the text unfolds as a comprehensive look at the Soviet, post-Soviet, and American cultures that shaped him and which he shaped. Dovlatov and Surroundings constantly, but effortlessly, shifts...