I don’t know why Nikolai Leskov is not better known: he’s one of the best… You don’t just feel the falling snowflakes and smell the hay – you glimpse where God might be

Nikolai Leskov is one of the greatest and most popular of the wonderful group of Russian storytellers who flourished in the nineteenth century

Serious criticism ignored him but his tales succeeded instantly with the public... No-one catches so truthfully the diversity of national character of his time. His variety is astonishing... Leskov has both feet in life

On Lady Macbbeth of Mtensk: 'Short, sharp and shocking novel...It is a strikingly modern work, a sort of souped-up Madame Bovary in which the anti-heroine, the bored provincial housewife Katerina Lvovna Izmailova, is gripped by an excessive passion for a seductive farmhand. She's hardboiled as any Chandler dame as her ardour for her low-born lover takes her down a jet-black road of cruelty and murder'

Nikolai Leskov fully deserves the privilege of standing in line with such makers of Russian literature as Tolstoi, Gogol, Turgenev and Goncharov. In power and beauty, Leskov's talent cedes only a little to the talent of any one of these men I have named - the creators of the Holy Bible of the Russian land - but in breadth of exposition, in depth of understanding of life's riddles, and in knowledge of the Russian language, he very often surpasses his predecessors and fellow writers

Fabulous episodes that follow one another likes floats at a carnival…

The supreme example of Leskov’s ability to tell a story whose flow is both unstoppable and unpredictable

[Leskov’s] stories…are worthy of being placed beside the best of Guy de Maupassant

My favourite writer, the famous Nikolai Leskov

Leskov is a writer for the future

Leskov fully deserves the privilege of standing in line with such makers of Russian literature as Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, and Goncharov

Stories as strong as fables and crazy as life

Surreal, gripping, violent but comic tales

Nikolai Leskov’s absence from classic Russian literature lists must end now! If you like Russian, and you like funny, you will love Leskov

Freakishly good... Barrett’s astonishingly mature stories windmill with violent abandon into our time.

How dare a debut writer be this good? Young Skins has all the hallmarks of an instant classic… His vision is sharp, his wit is sly, and the stories in this collection come alive with that ineffable thing – soul.

A triumph.

Barrett’s details shine like diamonds in a coal scuttle.

‘[Barrett] cuts across all kinds of boundaries of class and education to produce immensely tender portraits of living characters.

This is an exceptional debut, and one of the best collection of short stories that I have read in years.

An exciting debut

I don’t think I’ve ever read a better collection by somebody I had never heard of

A technically-assured collection that never disappoints