War and Peace: Contemporary Russian Prose

Stories of war - life as a soldier in the Chechnya war; fierce fighting and a miraculous salvation from sure death; an ex-serviceman's inability to reintegrate into peaceful life after his army stint in Chechnya; one day in the bleak existence as a border guard - and of peace: a vivid portrait of a small provincial town where a very average, modern, young woman still yearns for love and tries various ways of getting it; a modern woman rebels against the traditional dependency implicit in male-female relationships.