In een niet aflatende woordenwaterval steekt Gary Shteyngart de draak met de geniepigheid en de achterbaksheid van de mens, met het politieke gekonkelfoes, met de nooit aflatende bedriegerij en zelfzucht. Dit is een satire.Ībsurdistan is Azerbeidzjan - de auteur verwijst naar het verblijf van Alexandre Dumas in de Caucasus - maar dat doet in feite niet ter zake. Neen, dit boek heeft niet de bedoeling leuk of hilarisch te zijn. Neen, dit is geen hybride van 'A confederacy of dunces' en 'Fight Club'. Populated by curvaceous brown-eyed beauties, circumcision-happy Hasidic Jews, a loyal manservant who never stops serving, and scheming oil execs from a certain American company whose name rhymes with Malliburton, Absurdistan is a strange, oddly true-to-life look at how we live now, from a writer who should know. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as Minister of Multicultural Affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century. Salvation may lie in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. He's stuck in Russia, dreaming of his beloved Rouenna and the Oz of NYC. Misha is paying the price of exile from his adopted American homeland. But it won't, because Misha's late Beloved Papa whacked an Oklahoma businessman of some prominence. Open Absurdistan and meet outsize Misha Vainberg, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, lover of large portions of food and drink, lover and inept performer of rap music, and lover of a South Bronx Latina whom he longs to rejoin in New York City, if only the American INS will grant him a visa.

Absurdistan by gary shteyngart