“The Tricksters” is a new collection of witty and paradoxical stories by Denis Dragunsky about life and literature. A conversation with a deeply erudite, passionately thinking companion is worth its weight in gold. “The Tricksters” is a kaleidoscope of such talks and little talks that Denis Dragunsky conducts with an unmistakable mark of observant attention and gentle irony. In different voices, from the perspective of astonishing storytellers, he presents the most extraordinary and unexpected cases—tastefully invented or taken straight from real life. And besides, “The Tricksters” contains plenty of sharp, thrilling reflections on writing: how the great Russian literature is harmful, what writer-parasites are, why it’s hard to be a critic, what clichés exist, and how preaching ruins poems… Here the author is no longer hiding behind a character’s mask—this part of the texts (and several more stories!) was read for the audiobook by Denis Dragunsky himself.