Description of a Struggle: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Eastern European Writing Book

	Editor's Acknowledgements
	Preface
	Introduction: Writing from the Empire behind the Wall
	Russians By Trade	3
	Repetition	10
	The Balkan Express	19
	The Pope	24
	Annihilation	33
	Retina	39
	The Register of Adulteresses	60
	Mina	65
	Vivisection	83
	The Sunken Apple Tree	89
	Down the Danube	92
	The Contents of Suitcases	101
	The Pink Scarf	113
	The Unborn	119
	He Wakes Up	134
	Brownian Motion	140
	Escalation of Feeling	147
	Memorial to Don Giovanni	162
	On the Threshold	169
	The White Dog	175
	Desires: The Erotica of Communism	189
	Big Business	202
	My Past, My Future	220
	A Bulgarian Tourist Chats to an English Pigeon in Trafalgar Square	223
	The Dream	235
	The Open Window	242
	The War	244
	The Art of War	252
	The Concert	257
	The Secret of my Youth	262
	The Pain of a Distant Winter	267
	Two Stories about Suicides	277
	I'm Going Out, to Buy a Lightbulb	291
	The History of Yellow	305
	Mousy Death	311
	The Beauty of History	325
	We Gaze Up into the Tops of the Spruce Trees	328
	Variations on the Seasons	333
	Hog's Fat, Pancake, and the Sausage	343
	The Time of Peonies: A Novel	351
	Stereoscopic Slavs	357
	Ants	366
	Philemon and Baucis	375
	Biographical Notes	387
	Acknowledgements	398