Alexander Pokrovsky is a wonderful Russian prose writer; entire generations of readers have grown up on his books “...Shoot!”, “72 Meters”, “Behemoth” and many others. He writes not only entertainingly and witty. The language of his books, full of humor and excitement, is directly related to the traditions of Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Zoshchenko. The writer is endowed with the ability to distinguish between the comic in the terrible and the significant in the funny. The sparkling stories collected in the new collection “Dog” paint a picture of life in our time that is both critically harsh and compassionate.