Out Visiting and Back Home

It is often said that America doesn't treat its elderly with the respect and compassion that other countries do. But how much do we really know about the status of old people around the world? Out Visiting and Back Home, a collection of Russian short stories on aging, helps to fill the gap. Gathering short stories by ten well-known and highly regarded contemporary Russian authors, this book offers a wide-ranging portrait of aging and old age in Russia. From tales about the harsh realities of urban life, to portraits of intergenerational conflict, to the story of a young Jewish girl just entering puberty as her grandfather is dying, these are stories we can relate to and learn from. Through them we see that, though much less prone to deny that they are growing older, Russians have a narrower view of aging than we do in the West. The idea of life as a series of aging processes is almost unknown in Russia. The stories are representative of the variety of perspectives and authorial styles in recent Russian: Vasily Shukshin has been well known since the 1960s; Vasily Beloy and Vladimir Makanin were part of the literary establishment in the Soviet period; Nina Katerli, Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Tatyana Tolstaya, and Ludmila Ulitskaya began publishing only after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Other contributors to this volume include Denis Dragunsky, Friedrich Gorenstein, and Anatoly Kim. Out Visiting and Back Home, a collection of first rate fiction that expands our insight into old age, should be read not just by those interested in the aging process, but by anyone interested in psychology, sociology, Slavic literature, comparative literature, and creative writing.