Little Failure: A memoir
Feb 2014 · Penguin UK
3.4star
23 reviewsreport
eBook
368
Pages
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About this eBook
Little Failure is an autobiography of comic genius by the hilarious Gary Shteyngart.
Little Failure - its title the same as the alarming pet-name given to the young Gary Shteyngart by his father when growing up in pre-Glasnost Russia - is one of the most remarkable immigrant memoirs ever written.
A candid and deeply poignant story of a Soviet family's trials and tribulations, and of their escape in 1979 to the consumerist promised land of the USA, it is also an exceptionally funny account of the author's transformation from asthmatic toddler in Red Square to 40-something Manhattanite with a receding hairline and a memoir to write.
'Kicks ass - more fantastic, more unbelievable than his novels' Mary Karr, author of The
Liars' Club
'A marvel of a story. His finest book yet' Zadie Smith
'Little Failure is a delight' Aravid Adiga
Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972. In 2007 he was named one of Granta's Best Young American novelists. His debut The Russian Debutante's Handbook was widely acclaimed (and won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction), as were his second, Absurdistan (one of the 10 Best Books of the Year in the New York Times) and Super Sad True Love Story. He writes regularly for the New Yorker.
Little Failure - its title the same as the alarming pet-name given to the young Gary Shteyngart by his father when growing up in pre-Glasnost Russia - is one of the most remarkable immigrant memoirs ever written.
A candid and deeply poignant story of a Soviet family's trials and tribulations, and of their escape in 1979 to the consumerist promised land of the USA, it is also an exceptionally funny account of the author's transformation from asthmatic toddler in Red Square to 40-something Manhattanite with a receding hairline and a memoir to write.
'Kicks ass - more fantastic, more unbelievable than his novels' Mary Karr, author of The
Liars' Club
'A marvel of a story. His finest book yet' Zadie Smith
'Little Failure is a delight' Aravid Adiga
Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972. In 2007 he was named one of Granta's Best Young American novelists. His debut The Russian Debutante's Handbook was widely acclaimed (and won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction), as were his second, Absurdistan (one of the 10 Best Books of the Year in the New York Times) and Super Sad True Love Story. He writes regularly for the New Yorker.
Ratings and reviews
3.4
23 reviews
Greg
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30 September 2019
Loved the gentle flow from Russia to USA by the whole family.
Fahim Seettha
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30 March 2014
Nice
1 person found this review helpful
Anil Das
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24 February 2021
AAA
About the author
Gary Shteyngart is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoir Little Failure (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist) and the novels Super Sad True Love Story (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Absurdistan, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction) and Lake Success. His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in thirty countries.
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