The Suitcase | Довлатов Сергей Донатович (Dovlatov S.); Alma Books, 2013

Born to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father, Sergei Dovlatov (1941-90) grew up in Leningrad. Because of his writings, which he could not publish in Russia, he was persecuted by the authorities, and ultimately forced into exile in the US, where he developed his talent as a comic writer. Since his death in 1990, Dovlatov has become one of the most popular and widely read authors in Russia.

Several years after emigrating from the USSR, the author discovers the battered suitcase he had brought with him gathering dust at the back of a wardrobe. As he opens the suitcase, the items he finds inside take on a riotously funny life of their own as Dovlatov inventories the circumstances under which he acquired them. A poplin shirt evokes a story of courtship and marriage, a pair of boots calls up the hilarious conclusion to an official banquet, two pea-green crêpe socks bring back memories of his attempt to become a black-market racketeer, while a double-breasted suit reminds him of when he was approached by the KGB to spy on a Swedish writer. Imbued with a comic nostalgia and overlaid with Dovlatov's characteristically dark-edged humour and wry power of observation, The Suitcase is a profoundly human, delightfully ironic novel from one of the finest satirists of the twentieth century.

A novel reminiscent of a Buster Keaton movie.

Dovlatov's writing is simple but witty, with a hint of nostalgia; you can't help but smile throughout. His tales open a small window on to daily life in the former Soviet Union.

His manically funny, deceptively simple style is on intimate terms with life's bleak comedy.

One wishes that he'd lived longer, been published sooner, given us more.