The fifth volume of the collected works of the famous Russian writer Yuri Polyakov includes his famous novel “The Mushroom Tsar”, as well as the stories “The Underground Artist” and “The Return of the Prodigal Husband”. All works are united by a common theme: love, family, human relationships in a cruel world, where money rules everything, and carnal selfishness triumphs over morality and spiritual purity. Especially for this volume, the author wrote an essay “A Writer Without a Mandate,” which tells how he himself survived in the turbulent nineties, trying to withstand the elements of destruction. The reader, as always, can expect to meet a brilliant storyteller, a subtle stylist and a witty interlocutor.