HMH Literature in Translation

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“The collection’s subtitle, Love Stories, is apt not in the sense that many people end up with love and happiness, but in the sense that the characters — uniformly underpaid, underhoused, underappreciated, and low on groceries — have nothing to hope for but love, the one resource that can’t be rationed. They live in cramped city apartments, assigned to them by the state, with one or two generations of their family, and work in thankless jobs. The most depressing love affairs — emotionless, unrequited, exploitative — shine with promise in these settings.”

Today, Janet Potter reviews Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s There Once Lived A Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself for us.