Moscow Stations, by Venedikt Yerofeev (Faber, £6.99 in UK)

Few novels have said more or been as succinct as this inspired autobiographical picaresque. Suspended in a state of perpetual drunkness, Venya the narrator drags himself about the Moscow streets without having ever seen the Kremlin. Kursk Station is his only constant. Though a passive witness of his own destruction, Venya is also a philosopher and a shrewd observer of a political system in collapse. "I like the way people in our country have such vacant, bulging eyes . . . they bulge non-stop without the slightest sense of strain. Utterly devoid of thought, but such power!" Even by the high standards of the Russian surrealist comic tradition, Yerofeev (1938-90) is a worthy heir of Gogol and Bulgakov. Written in 1969, it was not published in Russia until twenty years later when it became yet another underground cult classic. The dialogue is hilarious with abundant literary cross-references. Yerofeev alternates between slapstick and sophistication with spectacular ease, never losing sight of the often grotesque reality of Russian life.