Chapayev and Void

Victor Pelevin is a famous Russian postmodernist writer. The novel "Chapayev and Void" was nominated for the Little Booker Prize and also made it to the shortlist for the Dublin Literary Award. According to critics, this work is the "first... serious Zen-Buddhist novel in Russian literature."

Decadent poet Peter Void kills an old acquaintance, steals his identity, and becomes a commissar in Vasily Chapayev's division. Falling asleep, he wakes up in a psychiatric hospital. Which of these two realities is real? In one, Peter falls in love with Anka, has philosophical conversations with Chapayev, and learns what a clay machine gun is. In the other, he attends group sessions, dives into someone else's consciousness, and sees Schwarzenegger and Kawabata.

Or maybe neither is real? And are all these options one and the same nightmare from which one can only wake up?

"Chapayev and Void" is also the first novel in world literature set in absolute emptiness.