TRANSLATION Gray dirt, blue sky. The potato skins had white eyes.
VICTORY
Reed Grachev
Reed Grachev (1935-2004) was a Russian fiction writer of the 1950s and 60s whose stories were read primarily through unofficial “samizdat” networks in his home city of Leningrad. His published books include the 1967 story collection Где твой дом? (Where is Your Home?) and the 1994 collection Ничей брат (No One’s Brother). Instilled with the hopes of the Khrushchev Thaw, Grachev's stories depict the struggle for individuality amidst collectivity and, conversely, isolated characters’ attempts to establish meaningful bonds. A fluent French speaker, Grachev also translated Saint-Exupéry for Soviet readers. Two posthumous anthologies of Grachev's stories and essays were published in 2013 and 2014 in Russia. You can read other translations of Grachev’s fiction in Catapult and Subtropics and read more about him in the Paris Review Daily.