SOURCE: “Honest Constructing,” in Times Literary Supplement, No. 4064, February 20, 1981, p. 200.

In the following review, Thomas lauds the narrative skill in the short fiction of In Plain Russian, while outlining the intentions of the plots and characters.

Vladimir Voinovich was expelled from the Writers' Union in 1974, one week after Solzhenitsyn's deportation to the West. He had bravely supported Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents, but not because he himself felt any strong political commitments. “My character,” he said, “is absolutely not that of a dissident. I am a completely apolitical person. I have never held literature to be a part of politics.” He attracted persecution simply because it is his nature to be straight-forward and truthful. Integrity, an almost naïve inability to distort reality, is the most striking characteristic of the two novellas which form the major part of [In Plain Russian] this miscellany of his earlier work.

These stories...