"How strange, how indescribably strange, that behind the wall, this very wall, there's a man with an angry face sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out, wearing red boots"
"His overcoat was long and thick, of a purple hue, either plaid or striped, or maybe, damn it all, polka dot."
"On those days, I would try to manufacture a joyous mood for myself. I would like down on my bed and smile. I'd smile for twenty minutes at a time, but then the smile would turn into a yawn."
"Reason? Rapture? Rectangle? Rib? Or: Mind? Misery? Matter?"
"Marina told me that one Sharik visited her in bed. Who, or what, this Sharik was I couldn't for the life of me determine."
What the hell is this? you may ask. These are lines from very short stories by a Russian writer named Daniil Kharms (1905-1942), who starved to death in the psychiatric ward of a Soviet prison during the siege of Leningrad.
The lines above are taken from a handful stories by Kharms published in the New Yorker. You can read the full stories--the longest of which is about 625 words--here. They were translated from the Russian by Matvei Yankelvich, Simona Schneider and Eugene Ostashevsky.
Here's another collection of his stories.
Both the New York Times Book Review and The Guardian recently published articles about Kharms' work.
Read Wikipedia's biography of Kharms here.
