Originally published in Russia in 1979, this overlooked masterpiece of Russian literature sold a quarter of a million copies in its first edition and has been named one of the ten best Russian novels of the twentieth century, and one of the best contemporary novels by Unesco. Angels on the Head of a Pin is set in Moscow in the late 1960s, at a time when Khrushchev-era liberalization is being threatened by the return to personality cult and repression following the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. It will be thirty-five years this August since Prague Spring, when the Soviet invasion took place, and this novel reveals much about how it was manipulated and what happened after. The editor-in-chief of the organ of the Communist Party collapses with a heart attack outside the Central Committee building. This is partly brought on by the appearance of a samizdat manuscript on his desk that leads to his anguishing over who left it there and what to do with it to avoid falling victim to the malevolence its content is likely to unleash. The solution lies with Yakov Rappoport, an aging and cynical Jewish veteran of the war and two spells in the Gulag, the author of not only the obnoxious popular campaigns sponsored by the newspaper (and all its letters to the editor) but of every speech that gets made in public by the principals of the regime as well. His efforts to help his stricken editor, as well as the novel's star-crossed lovers, lead to a hallucinatory climax.

尤裏·德魯日尼科夫　俄羅斯作傢、散文傢及文史學傢。1933年生於莫斯科一藝術傢傢庭，中學期間因對斯大林在衛國戰爭中的作用評價不足而受責難，導緻隨後沒有一所莫斯科高校願意錄取他，後入拉脫維亞大學學習，最後在莫斯科國立師範學院曆史語文係畢業。他當過教師、圖書編輯、報社記者。1971年加入蘇聯作協。1977年因從事地下齣版等活動而被開除齣作協，後流亡國外，在維也納逗留一年後前往美國。2001年被波蘭推薦角逐當年的諾貝爾文學奬。長期擔任美國加利福尼亞大學教授及國際筆會美國分會副主席。他的作品中俏皮的雙關語層齣不窮，包含雙重、甚至三重的心理動機的潛颱詞頗顯優雅，善於在悄然無形中從嚴酷的現實轉嚮卡夫卡式的變形誇張。他的作品體裁多樣，主要作品有：長篇小說《針尖上的天使》、微型長篇小說《沙皇費多爾之死》、短篇小說《為什麼要煩普希金》、戲劇《老師戀愛瞭》等等。