Iskander, Fazil ~ Forbidden Fruit and Other Stories : Soviet Short Stories Series

Progress Publishers, Moscow : 1972

The First English printing published by Progress Publishers, Moscow in 1972. 12mo.., decorative glued card wraps as issued, printed with designs in orange, black and blue to upper cover and spine; black and white photograph of the author, together with blurb, to the lower cover; with numerous black and white illustrations throughout; upper edge top-stain blue; The BOOK is in Very Good++ condition, a little rubbed at the edges and toned along the spine; nicking and small losses to the spine tips; lower cover lightly shelf worn; light spotting to the outer edges of the text block; purple ink stamps from a book centre seller in Rawalpindi Cantt, Pakistan to the the front blank end-paper and title page. The book is protected in a removable Mylar cover. First English edition, in printed wraps as issued. No hardback format was issued. The author's debut book in English, with the stories predominantly set in Abkhazia near the Black Sea. Iskander first began publishing short stories in the 1960s, and perhaps one of his most famous from that period was translated into English as 'The Goatibex Constellation', criticised by many upon publication for its outwardly sardonic satire of Lysenkoism. The stories in this volume include 'Something about Myself', 'A Time of Lucky Finds' and 'The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules'. Iskander later became known for his comic novel 'Sandro of Chegem', a book which would earn him the title of 'an Abkhazian Mark Twain.' 'As humorist and satirist', the Professor Lesley Milne later wrote, 'he operated on the borderline between the permissible and the prohibited, constantly and deliberately overstepping the mark'. Scarce.

BINDING: Wraps
CONDITION: Very Good++