The History of a Town (Istoriya Odnogo Goroda)

A chronicle of the town of Foolov, where one mayor has a device with recorded scripts instead of a brain, and another's head is stuffed with truffles. Meanwhile, a third is writing a charter 'about the freedom of mayors from being constrained by laws,' and a fourth dreams of creating identical houses for identical people. Science fiction, you say? Not quite, more like grotesque. It's a device that, like a magnifying glass with a built-in flashlight, helps the author highlight—and the reader see—the most important things. Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, who knew life in the capital and the provinces from every angle, didn't fantasize, but painted his characters from life. Not only the mayors, but also the residents of Foolov. Incidentally, what do the latter do while the former are acting up? You'll find out in the book.