Thomas Pynchon is, along with Salinger, “the great American recluse,” one of the greatest writers of world literature of the 20th and now 21st centuries, after his first publications he was unanimously recognized as a classic on the level of Nabokov, Joyce and Borges. Pynchon's heroes are traditionally obsessed with the themes of universal conspiracy and social paranoia, and the search for the secret springs of history. In a collection of early prose by "an inimitable teller of stories from the dark underbelly of our imagination" (Guardian), we see "brilliant talent in the making" (New Republic). Moreover, the book contains, perhaps, the only detailed direct statement from the famous recluse: “No one knew anything about Pynchon as a person - until he revealed himself in the preface to a collection of his early stories” (Sunday Times). Translations are published in a new edition, the author's preface - for the first time in Russian.