Praised by The New York Times Book Review as "an Abkhazian Mark Twain," Fazil Iskander was one of the most acclaimed writers in the Soviet Union--and also one of the funniest. In Rabbits and Boa Constrictors, Iskander the story of a struggle between . . . well, rabbits and boa constrictors, which is really a struggle between the manipulators and the manipulated as they try to function in a failed utopia.