The Foundation Pit (European Classics) - Softcover

"There is not an educated reader in the USSR who does not know Platonov, and not a single professional writer alive in this country who would not pay tribute to his mastery." --Yevgeny Yevtushenko "Platonov is an important and remarkable writer. His brand of humanism is unique and moving. His prose is deliberately and effectively incongruous. It takes a translator of Mirra Ginsburg's skill to render this quality into equally effective English." --Victor Erlich "Its mere existence bespeaks a man of integrity and courage." --Booklist

Once known only to a small circle of admirers in Russia and the West, Andrey Platonov (1899-1951) has emerged to assume his rightful place as one of the major Russian writers of the twentieth century. Set during a small Russian town during the forcible collectivization of agriculture, The Foundation Pit portrays a group of workmen and local bureaucrats engaged in digging the foundation pit for a grand building where all the town's will live happily and "in silence."