Dag Solstad is one of the most prominent contemporary authors in Norway. Consistently met with critical acclaim, his work has frequently been nominated for awards. He is the only author to have received the Norwegian Literary Critics' Award three times. All three of his novels available in English have been listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. This story, "Moscow," is from his early short story collection Svingstol from 1967.
Russia is a vast country. I've often imagined it rising up and throwing its entire left side over the rest of Europe, swallowing it the way a bear swallows a mouse.