In the chaos of early-1990s Russia, a paralyzed veteran's wife and stepdaughter conceal the Soviet Union's collapse from him in order to keep him--and his pension--alive, until it turns out the tough old man has other plans. An instant classic of post-Soviet Russian literature, Olga Slavnikova's The Man Who Couldn't Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a life--and the means and meaning of their own lives--by creating a world that doesn't change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled.

Introduction by Mark Lipovetsky
The Man Who Couldn't Die

Olga Slavnikova was born in 1957 in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg). She is the author of several award-winning novels, including 2017, which won the 2006 Russian Booker prize and was translated into English by Marian Schwartz (2010), and Long Jump, which won the 2018 Yasnaya Polyana Award.
Marian Schwartz translates Russian contemporary and classic fiction, including Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and is the principal translator of Nina Berberova.