Barry Scherr, Dartmouth College:
Zoshchenko’s satirical prowess brought him fame in the Soviet Union, and these Sentimental Tales, with their dark humor and sharp parody, rank among his best writings. Boris Dralyuk’s fine translations succeed wonderfully in conveying the innovative style and unique narrative voice of the originals.

Robert Chandler, translator of Vasily Grossman, Andrei Platonov, Teffi, and many others:
Zoshchenko is the wittiest and most perceptive of Soviet satirists. Boris Dralyuk is the first translator to succeed in bringing his wit into English. Comedy is largely a matter of timing, and Dralyuk, like Zoshchenko himself, has an impeccable sense of rhythm.

Lesley Milne, University of Nottingham:
Mikhail Zoshchenko is one of Russia’s great humorists, not only of the Soviet era but of all time. Boris Dralyuk’s translation of Sentimental Tales reads beautifully, and the English language work is a real tour de force. It transmits Zoshchenko’s quirky style while still maintaining a natural, easy flow, with well-judged rhythms and cadences that echo Zoshchenko’s own.

Andrey Kurkov, author of Death and the Penguin:
I know of no satirist more angry, more warlike than Mikhail Zoshchenko. Yet I love him not for his anger, I love him for his astonishing irony—for the fact that it is sometimes difficult to determine the target of his mockery: is it his characters, his readers, himself? This new translation preserves Zoshchenko’s irony in all its force.

Janet Fitch, author of The Revolution of Marina M. and Paint It Black:
In the face of ideological pressure to produce heroic forms, Zoshchenko’s playful, sly, gallows-humored Sentimental Tales responds with superfluous men. If life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel, Zoshchenko gives us comedy silhouetted in unspoken tragedy. This many-layered pleasure is brought closer to the contemporary reader by a nimble translation by Boris Dralyuk.