The Yawning Heights

If you like scathing irony and dark humour, this is a must read! Zinoviev follows in the tradition of Soviet dissident authors, criticising the party elite and the doublespeak of its propaganda but with such biting humour. All the characters are based on real people from the Soviet nomenklatura (Stalin is "Teacher/Leader") but they're disguised by Bunyanesque common-noun names. Even so, this book was unpublishable in the USSR and was smuggled to the west...