The Russian Debutante's Handbook

gary shteyngart

Vladimir is a young Russian-American immigrant whose capitalist dreams and desire for a girlfriend lead him off the straight and narrow into uncharted territory. From the dreary confines of New York City's Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society to the hip frontier wilderness of Prava - the Eastern European Paris of the nineties, whose grand and glorious beauty is marred only by the shadow of the looming statue of Stalin's foot - The Russian Debutante's Handbook is a hilarious, extravagant, yet uncannily true to life adventure.

Genres fictionrussiahumorcontemporarynovelsbook clubjewishnew yorkliteratureamerican

464 pages, Paperback

First published April 29,2002

Literary awards

national jewish book award, stephen crane award,

Places

new york city new york,

This edition

Format: 464 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 2004 by Bloomsbury Paperbacks
ISBN: 9780747568193
ASIN: 0747568197
Language: English

Characters More characters

Vladimir Girshkin

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About the author

gary shteyngart

Gary Shteyngart is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.

His first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), received the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award.