“I never developed a taste for bombing civilians,” said the king. “Looks like a violation of the social contract.” We are obliged to wage the war, and the people are obliged to pay for it.

The Soviet Union and America had not yet entered the Second World War, so it fell to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table to defend Europe from the fascist hordes. Guinevere cheats on her wife with Lancelot, Ezra Pound accuses everyone of a Masonic conspiracy, Churchill is digging an underground headquarters, trade unions are demanding money, and Mordred is plotting treason. The outcome of the war must be decided by the mysterious prophecy of Merlin...

The last book of the American classic of postmodernism Donald Barthelme (1931 - 1989) “The King” is a parody of chivalric romances and legends about King Arthur, black humor and high romance. For the first time in Russian.