August 7

Sorokin discusses his short story “Red Pyramid” here

In the Soviet Union, the beginning of the sixties, after Yuri Gagarin’s space flight, saw the last burst of “romantic” Communism. This was the ideal time to meet with an angel who could tell the mystical truth about Lenin and Stalin’s project. In the thirties, Yura would just have run away from this strange man, assuming him to be a White Guardsman who somehow hadn’t been finished off. In the harsh wartime forties, Yura would have paid no attention to him, as if he were merely an insane person. And, in the ironic seventies, when nobody believed in Communism at all anymore, Yura would simply have agreed with the fat man.

Watch a lecture about Sorokin's literary works

Read more about Bradlee, Jr. here

Visit the website of Ben Bradlee, Jr.

Listen to radio interviews of Garrison Keillor here