This module analyses the specific features of the short story form, its theorizations, history, considering how the genre’s specific features have been used to express the concerns and currents of recent Russian life since 1991. Themes analysed include post-modernism, women’s writing, the reckoning with the Soviet past, diasporic literature and the search for a new, Russian identity. Authors studied include Liudmilla Petrushevskaia, Tatiana Tolstaia, Viktor Pelevin, Zakhar Prilepin and Anna Starobinets.