In the guise of a spirited, iconoclastic study of the presiding deity of Russian literature, the great Andrei Sinyavsky (writing as his bolder alter ego, Abram Tertz) has composed an ardent and fastidious attack on philistinism in all its forms: literary, psychological, and political.
Susan Sontag In his alter ego as Tertz, Sinyavsky was the David to every institutional Goliath, picking off the monumental cult of the national poet of the Stalin period and the sentimentalized icon of Russia Abroad. His shock tactics were Pushkinian: irreverent wit, conversational tone, thinking outside the box. And guess what? Pushkin was no saint, but his genius is supremely alive and human in this brilliant appreciation. All readers should find in this spirited classic of literary and cultural criticism, vibrantly translated, expertly introduced and annotated, license to our own individual musings with two great writers and writing.
Andrew Kahn, University of Oxford This translation of Sinyavsky's subversive text achieves the impossible, shocking, entertaining, and beguiling us into a freer, more lively appreciation of the liberating power of language.
Cathy Porter, Independent Given its title, Sinyavsky's work is appropriately rambling and easygoing, but also brilliantly iconoclastic about this most iconic of Russian writers.
Michael Dirda Washington Post