Ten Russian novels to read before you die

Andrew D. Kaufman is Russian literature scholar at the University of Virginia and the author of Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times. One title on his list of ten Russian novels to read before you die, as shared at The Daily Beast:

The Funeral Party (2002) by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

This English-language debut of one of contemporary Russia’s most important novelists describes the bizarre and touching interactions among a colorful cast of Russian émigrés living in New York who attend the deathbed of Alik, a failed, but well-liked painter. At once quirky and trenchant, The Funeral Party explores two of the biggest “accursed questions” of Russian literature—How to live? How to die?—as they play out in a tiny, muggy Manhattan apartment in the early ’90s.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue