Author | Viktor Dragunsky |
---|---|
Language | Russian |
Genre | Short story collection, children's fiction |
Publication date | 1961 |
The Adventures of Dennis (Russian: Денискины рассказы, Deniskiny rasskazy) is a collection of short stories for children written by Soviet author Viktor Dragunsky. They deal with the life of an eight-year-old boy in Moscow in the late 1950s and 1960s,[1] modelled on the author's son.[2] The first story was written in 1959; by 1961 a collection was published as a book. The total number of stories is about a hundred.[2]
The stories show a wide range of tone, with Dragunsky mixing the poetic, the satirical and the sentimental.[2] A 1999 review in the New Zealand Slavonic Journal describes the stories as "beautifully written" and offering "a rich psychological profile of Russian children".[3]
The Adventures of Dennis were popular in India, where they existed in English and Marathi translations.[1][4] One reason for their popularity was that they were more relatable when compared to English children's literature.[5] In 2016 they were for the first time translated directly from Russian into Hindi and Marathi.[1]