A barker in a porn establishment, a ghost in the first minutes of his life, a nun on duty at the “suicide rock,” a little god who found the Earth in a trash heap, a young woman and her hand on the last day they spent together, a scientist who learns to summon rain in the African desert, a group of artists who were lured from their native New York and wittily played out in the Scottish wilderness, and others are the heroes of the collection, which includes fifteen stories by the bright English writer Michel Faber. Faber is endowed with a lively, whimsical and partly sinister fantasy, his The works are distinguished by naturalism and psychological authenticity even in the most exotic situations. He is a master of plot and strong, effective endings. M. Faber is also the author of the novels Walk in My Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White. “The Rain Will Fall Suddenly” (1998) is the writer’s debut collection, published in Russian for the first time.