Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Queue | 1984 | Vladimir Sorokin | Buy |
| 2 | Day of the Oprichnik | 2006 | Vladimir Sorokin | Buy |
| 3 | The Blizzard | 2010 | Vladimir Sorokin | Buy |
| 4 | Доктор Гарин | 2021 | Vladimir Sorokin | N/A |
| 5 | Their Four Hearts | 2022 | Vladimir Sorokin | Buy |
| 6 | Telluria | 2022 | Vladimir Sorokin | Buy |
| 7 | Blue Lard | 2024 | Vladimir Sorokin | Buy |
Vladimir Sorokin’s standalone novels span four decades and range from absurdist satire to speculative dystopia. The Queue (1984) is written entirely as dialogue between people standing in a Soviet line, with no narration at all. Day of the Oprichnik (2006) imagines a future Russia sealed behind a great wall and ruled by a Tsar whose secret police terrorize the population. The Blizzard (2010) follows a country doctor trying to deliver a zombie vaccine through a relentless Russian snowstorm, blending Chekhov-style realism with wild science fiction.
Their Four Hearts (1991, translated 2022) was short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize and is a fragmented, difficult novel written as the Soviet Union collapsed. Telluria (2022) pictures a post-war Europe and Russia fractured into feudal micro-states where people hammer nails of a rare metal called tellurium into their brains for a narcotic high. Blue Lard (1999, translated 2024) is the novel that got Sorokin prosecuted for pornography in Russia, featuring cloned Soviet leaders in graphic situations. The publication years here reflect the English translation dates in several cases, since Sorokin wrote many of these books years or decades before they appeared in English.