Gary Shteyngart

Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia and proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA.Misha is an American impounded in a Russian''s body and the only place he feels at home is New York; he just wants to live in the South Bronx with his Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a US visa are lost.Salvation lies in the tiny oil-rich nation of Absurdistan (a fictional former Soviet republic), where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.

A finales de los setenta, los cambios en la política mundial tendrán una influencia decisiva en la vida de Igor, un niño enclenque y asmático de Leningrado. Jimmy Carter y Leonid Brézhnev han acordado intercambiar cereales entre sus dos paises; a cambio, la URSS aceptara que judios sovieticos puedan emigrar a EE. UU. La familia de Igor sera una de las que se aprovecharan de ese acuerdo. Ya en EE. UU. sempiterno enemigo para cualquier niño sovietico- a Igor no le quedara mas remedio que convertirse en Gary para ahorrarse problemas (y alguna que otra paliza). El cambio de vida es tan radical que Gary siente haber despegado de un mundo en blanco y negro para aterrizar en otro en tecnicolor; dos mundos tan contradictorios haran de su adaptacion una tarea improba. Sus dificultades para encajar en el nuevo pais son tales que su madre, decepcionada, acuñara el apodo pequeño fracaso para referirse al que hasta entonces habia sido su hijo predilecto. En Pequeño fracaso, Shteyngart rememora su infancia en la URSS, sus vivencias como inmigrante en EE. UU., su juventud y sus inicios como escritor; un libro inteligente, mordaz y divertido que lo confirma como uno de los mas destacados autores norteamericanos contemporaneos.

El Central Park de Nueva York está a reventar de jóvenes que acampan en señal de protesta. La salud, el transporte, y la educación han sido privatizados y sus efectos son desastrosos. Estados Unidos se encuentra al borde del colapso -ahogado por la presion china-, y sus ciudadanos viven a merced de una voluble economia en la que no hay lugar para los pobres y los viejos. Lenny Abramov esta a punto de perder su empleo en una multinacional que vende inmortalidad, pero esta cerca de lograr lo que nadie, en este agitado y apocaliptico mundo, ha conseguido hasta ahora: tener a su lado a alguien que lo ame, porque el amor, como los libros y el gusto por la lectura, se ha convertido en un vago recuerdo.

Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia and proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA.Misha is an American impounded in a Russian''s body and the only place he feels at home is New York; he just wants to live in the South Bronx with his Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a US visa are lost.Salvation lies in the tiny oil-rich nation of Absurdistan (a fictional former Soviet republic), where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.

A finales de los setenta, la política mundial cambiará la vida de Igor, un niño minúsculo y asmático de Leningrado. Carter y Breznev acuerdan intercambiar cereales por judíos rusos. Así es como su familia logra instalarse en ee.uu. sempiterno enemigo para cualquier niño sovietico, donde a Igor no le quedara mas remedio que convertirse en Gary para ahorrarse alguna que otra paliza.Un giro tan radical como despegar de un mundo en blanco y negro para aterrizar en otro en Technicolor; dos mundos contradictorios que hacen de la adaptacion una tarea improba. La decepcion ante las dificultades de Gary para adaptarse a su nuevo pais sera tan grande que su madre acuñara el apodo de pequeño fracaso y lo usara para referirse al que hasta entonces habia sido su prometedor hijo.En Pequeño fracaso, Shteyngart rememora su infancia en la urss, sus vivenciascomo inmigrante en ee.uu., su juventud y sus inicios como escritor; un libro inteligente, mordaz y divertido que lo ha confirmado como uno de los mas destacados autores norteamericanos contemporaneos.

Toques autobiográficos, humor depreciativo, picardia e uma ponta de melancolia sempre frequentaram os livros do russo radicado nos EUA Gary Shteyngart, um dos mais talentosos romancistas de sua geraço. Mas o autor de Absurdisto nunca havia ido to fundo em suas proprias e hilarias, desconcertantes historias quanto em Fracassinho Memorias. Da infancia em Leningrado a aculturaço por meio de programas de TV americanos, passando pelas obsesses sexuais e o fracasso com as mulheres, a trajetoria de subempregos, a literatura e, sobretudo, a complexa relaço com os pais, o livro foi aclamado pela critica e alcançou o cobiçado ranking de bestsellers do The New York Times.

New York, Summer, Very near future, Economic collapse, tanks in the streets, riots in Central Park, defeat in Venezuela, books are quaint artefacts, what's left of the indebted United States is about to be parcelled out to the rising nations of Finance-London and China-Worldwide, and what's left of interpersonal relations can be summarized by a couple of flashing statistics on attractiveness and wealth. But Lenny Abramov is too in love to notice any of it. The son of working-class Russian immigrants, a bumbling minor functionary in a company that just may hold the secret to eternal life, and the reluctant star of a show called "101 People We Need To Feel Sorry For", he has fallen way too hard for the imperious Eunice Park, a blistering, beautiful Korean-American, a seductive shopper and brilliant money-spender who still knows how to speak in sentences, and a true child of her times. As the country around them explodes into a million glittering pieces, the two will discover whether love is still possible in a world where words have lost their meaning, and where every touch, embrace and kiss could be mistaken for a commodity.

***New York Times bestseller, shortlisted for 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction!***Its a true pleasure to sink into Shteyngarts expansive, benevolent storytellingSunday Times A masterpiece . . . There cannot be a more relevant novel for our moment, certainly not one with such beauty of description, depth of feeling, and, as always, humour.-Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofLessIts March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a Southern flamethrower of an essayist; and a movie star, the Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller Super Sad True Love Story.

In a very near future a functionally illiterate America is about to collapse. But don't tell that to poor Lenny Abramov, proud author of what may well be the world's last diary. Despite his job at an outfit called 'Post-Human Services', which attempts to provide immortality for its super-rich clientele, death is clearly stalking this cholesterol-rich morsel of a man. And why shouldn't it? Lenny's from a different century. He TOTALLY loves books (or 'printed, bound media artifacts' as they're now known), even though most of his peers find them smelly and annoying. But even more than books, Lenny loves Eunice Park, an impossibly cute and impossibly cruel 24-year-old Korean-American woman who just graduated from Elderbird College with a major in 'Images' and a minor in 'Assertiveness'. When riots break out in New York's Central Park, the city's streets are lined with National Guard tanks, and patient Chinese creditors look ready to foreclose on the whole mess, Lenny vows to convince his fickle new love that in a time without standards or stability, there is still value in being a real human being.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER GOOD MORNING AMERICA BUZZ PICK ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Financial Times, The Washington Post, Time, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Town & Country, Good Housekeeping, Kirkus ReviewsA perfect novel for these times and all times, the single textual artifact from the pandemic era I would place in a time capsule as a representation of all that is good and true and beautiful about literature.Molly Young, The New York TimesEight friends, one country house, and six months in isolationa novel about love, friendship, family, and betrayal hailed as a virtuoso performance (USA Today) and an homage to Chekhov with four romances and a finale that will break your heart (The Washington Post)In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a Southern flamethrower of an essayist; and a movie star, the Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller Super Sad True Love Story.

Gary Shteyngart has held up a mirror to American culture that is so accurate, and so devastating, that it makes you want to break the mirror right over your own head. I mean this as a good thing.Elizabeth GilbertNarcissistic, hilariously self-deluded, and divorced from the real world as most of us know it, hedge-fund manager Barry Cohen oversees $2.4 billion in assets. Deeply stressed by an SEC investigation and by his three-year-old-sons diagnosis of autism, he flees New York on a Greyhound bus in search of a simpler, more romantic life with his old college sweetheart. Meanwhile, his super-smart wife, Seemaa driven first-generation American who craved the picture-perfect life that comes with wealthhas her own demons to face. How these two flawed characters navigate the Shteyngartian chaos of their own making is at the heart of this piercing exploration of the 0.1 Percent, a poignant tale of familial longing and an unsentimental ode to what really makes America great.

'Gary Shteyngart hears America perfectly; its fatuity, its poignant lament, its boisterous self-loathing. Its heartbeat. Reading him sometimes makes me want to scream - with recognition and with pure hilarity' - Richard Ford 'A trip through the American wasteland - from the people who have too little, to the people who have too much. Incredibly smart, incredibly funny, incredibly tragic, and therefore incredibly human, this is the perfect novel for these dysfunctional times' - Nathan Hill 'The funniest book you'll read all year. A rollicking and zinger-filled road trip [that] sneakily deepens into a poignant tale of a man trying to outrace his problems. I was utterly floored' - Maria Semple 'Stupendous... Reflecting with perfect comedy and horrible tragedy exactly what America feels like right this minute... I barked with laughter at the same time as wincing in pain' Elizabeth Gilbert A riotously satirical road trip through modern America from the brilliant author of Super Sad True Love Story and Absurdistan Barry Cohen, master of the universe, has just had a very public meltdown involving a dinner party, an insider trading investigation and a $30,000 bottle of Japanese whisky. So he flees New York City, leaving behind his beautiful young wife and son, but remembering to bring his six favourite designer watches. Zig-zagging south through Trump's America on a Greyhound Bus pilgrimmage he is singularly unprepared for, Barry heads to Texas - to find his old college girlfriend and, with her, a shot at a second chance... Lake Success marries the trademark Shteyngart wit with an astonishing emotional resonance, capturing the vivid eccentricity and contradictions of America right now while speaking to the universal human experience of love, belonging, and the pursuit of happiness.

Over 50 Best of 2018 listings worldwide* 'Gary Shteyngart hears America perfectly; its fatuity, its poignant lament, its boisterous self-loathing. Its heartbeat. Reading him sometimes makes me want to scream - with recognition and with pure hilarity' - Richard FordA riotously satirical road trip through modern America from the brilliant author of Super Sad True Love Story and AbsurdistanBarry Cohen, master of the universe, has just had a very public meltdown involving a dinner party, an insider trading investigation and a $30,000 bottle of Japanese whisky.So he flees New York City, leaving behind his beautiful young wife and son, but remembering to bring his six favourite designer watches. Zig-zagging south through Trump's America on a Greyhound Bus pilgrimmage he is singularly unprepared for, Barry heads to Texas - to find his old college girlfriend and, with her, a shot at a second chance... Lake Success marries the trademark Shteyngart wit with an astonishing emotional resonance, capturing the vivid eccentricity and contradictions of America right now while speaking to the universal human experience of love, belonging, and the pursuit of happiness.'A trip through the American wasteland - from the people who have too little, to the people who have too much. Incredibly smart, incredibly funny, incredibly tragic, and therefore incredibly human, this is the perfect novel for these dysfunctional times' - Nathan Hill'The funniest book you'll read all year. A rollicking and zinger-filled road trip [that] sneakily deepens into a poignant tale of a man trying to outrace his problems.I was utterly floored' - Maria Semple'Stupendous...Reflecting with perfect comedy and horrible tragedy exactly what America feels like right this minute... I barked with laughter at the same time as wincing in pain' Elizabeth Gilbert

Vladimir is a young Russian-American immigrant whose capitalist dreams and desire for a girlfriend lead him off the straight and narrow into uncharted territory. From the dreary confines of New York City''s Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society to the hip frontier wilderness of Prava - the Eastern European Paris of the nineties - whose grand and glorious beauty is marred only by the shadow of the looming statue of Stalin''s foot, The Russian Debutante''s Handbook is a hilarious, extravagant, yet uncannily true to life adventure. It is also a serious look at what it means to be an outsider in America and what it means to be an American.

A novel you can read in one sitting that will stay with you forever Karen RussellVery funny, very sad, very sharp, and completely delightful Elif BatumanA classic American road adventure. Gary Shteyngart keeps getting betterLiterary ReviewGenius... A miracleWashington PostPull up a beach chair: The book of the summer is here... A poignant Harriet the Spy-esque delight People The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love each other deeply but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. Theres Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of 21st century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston whos barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage give him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original. Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in life: a friend at school; Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure loves survival in this great, mad, imploding world.Both biting and deeply moving, Vera, or Faith is a boldly imagined story of family and country told through the clear and wondrous eyes of a child. With a nod to What Maisie Knew, Henry Jamess classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Gary Shteyngarts newest novel is among his best and shows why, in the words of Jonathan Safran Foer, he is a national treasure.

Uma visão hilária da América de Trump e um mergulho comovente e divertido na vida em família.O fundo bilionário que Barry Cohen administra está sob investigação. Seu filho de três anos acaba de receb

Uma abordagem cômica e sensível da Pandemia de 2020 a cargo de um dos mais engenhosos ficcionistas norte-americanos. Um grupo de amigos passa uma temporada numa propriedade rural; em algum ponto dos

Una atinada visión de la transición del infierno del socialismo al infierno del capitalismo. Bienvenido a Absurdistán, reino del petróleo y la ambición desmedida. A Misha Vainberg le cierran las puertas de Estados Unidos cuando su padre -un influyente mafioso ruso- mata a un hombre de negocios de Oklahoma. Sin visado y sin esperanzas, ha de tomar un camino alternativo para volver junto a su chica del Bronx: viaja a la corrupta Republica Absurdsvani para conseguir un pasaporte belga. Parece un plan sencillo, pero pronto todo se complica. En Absurdistan, Misha se ve envuelto en un surrealista conflicto bañado en sangre, petroleo y oscuras intrigas. ¿Podra salir de aquella pesadilla y volver a su sueño americano?Reseñas:Una inteligente satira que entretiene de principio a fin; sera dificil encontrar este año una novela politica mas divertida y aguda que esta.Libreria Powells La grafica y burlona satira de Shteyngart es un reflejo de como se vive el sueño americano en las hambrientas nuevas democracias. Su complejo y simpatico protagonista es digno de ser comparado con los personajes legendarios de la literatura americana.Publishers WeeklyAbsurdistan es una magnifica satira de la nueva oligarquia rusa, del estilo de vida americano, y de la megalomania, consumismo y afan por explotar a pequeños paises que comparten ambas naciones.The Washington Post Una satira profundamente divertida, genuinamente conmovedora y completamente adorable.TimeEsta novela es tan vigorosa, tan segura de su brutal superioridad, que solo respirando, sudando, estando frente a ella, se puede percibir su grandeza.The New York Times Book Review Una viva inteligencia brilla en cada pagina.Washington Post Comparado con la mayoria de novelistas de su edad, Shteyngart es ungigante a lomos de un caballo. Alcanza mayor profundidad, observa con mas agudeza y llega donde quiere con mucho mas aplomo.The New York Times Books Review