Ильф и Петров (Ilya Ilf)Praise for Ilf & Petrov
“Ilf & Petrov, two wonderfully gifted writers, decided that if they had a rascal adventurer as protagonist, whatever they wrote about his adventures could not be criticized from a political point of view. . . . Thus Ilf & Petrov . . . managed to publish some absolutely first-rate fiction under that standard of complete independence.”
—Vladimir Nabokov
“Ilf & Petrov are the foremost comic novelists of the early Soviet Union.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The Golden Calf is one of the most comic and politically subversive novels written under communism. Smooth operator Ostap Bender—whose sole goal in life was to become a millionaire and move to Rio de Janeiro—is one of the great classic heroes, standing shoulder to shoulder with Cervantes’s Don Quixote or Hašek’s vejk.”
—Dubravka Ugresic