The Faculty Of Useless Knowledge Av Yury Dombrovsky

<p>The Year of Terror, 1937. Zybin, an exiled intellectual and archaeologist in the far province of Alma-Ata, finds himself wrongly accused of a crime during the darkest days of Stalin''s reign. Soon, he and his colleagues are caught up in an ambitious Cheka investigator''s attempts to set up a show trial to rival those taking place in Moscow. <br><br>Vivid, courageous and defiant,<i> The Faculty of Useless Knowledge</i> is the crowning achievement by the author of <i>The Keeper of Antiquities</i> and <i>The Dark Lady</i> and draws heavily on autobiographical experience. First published in Russian in 1978, it is a masterpiece of anti-totalitarian literature, and stands alongside the works of Solzhenitsyn and Bulgakov in illuminating the chaos, absurdity and bureaucratic labyrinths of Soviet Russia.</p>