The Tales of Nazar Ilyich, Mister Sinebryukhov · 1922
The writer's first book: a cycle of stories told in the first person by a worldly soldier back from the war, in his own plain and crooked speech. This is where Zoshchenko found the skaz manner that would define him, letting a character give himself away by the way he talks.
Sentimental Tales · 1927
A handful of novellas about small people on the fringes of the new Soviet life, narrated by the dim writer Kolenkorov, who still pines for the old days. A parody of sentimental prose with a bitter grin at the age behind it.
Youth Restored · 1933
An aging professor sets out to make himself young again by force of will and overturns his whole life. The tale is threaded with the author's own scientific notes on the body, the nerves and health, an attempt to fuse fiction with popular science.
