Penguin Modern Classics

Write! Writing is for you, you are for you, your body is for you, take it.

First published in 1975, Medusa’s Laugh represented a defining moment for French feminism. In this landmark essay, feminist theorist and philosopher Hélène Cixous coined the term écriture féminine (or ‘feminine writing’). Allowing women to claim authority in the face of systematic oppression, she imagines this new mode of writing to be defined by a generous, open attitude to otherness and distinct from patriarchal models of communication. Part philosophical treatise, part political manifesto, Medusa’s Laugh is a clarion call to write – for ourselves and of ourselves – and is one of the most important works of second-wave feminism.

Translated by Eric Prenowitz.

Natsuko Matsuura is headstrong, beautiful and determined to live a life beyond the ordinary. Disappointed again and again by the drearily conventional men on the Tokyo dating scene, she decides to renounce marriage altogether and join a convent in faraway Hokkaido. Setting off with her grandmother, mother and aunt, she readies herself for a nun’s life. But her journey is derailed when she meets Tsuyoshi Ida, a fiery young man with sparkling eyes and a score to settle; with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, he’s tracking a bear through the forests of Hokkaido, seeking vengeance for the death of his former girlfriend. Thinking she may at last have met a man who shares her sense of adventure, Natsuko flees her anxious guardians and joins the hunt, with more than a bear in her sights . . .

Written in 1951 and translated into English for the very first time, The Adventures of Natsuko shows Mishima at his comic best, in an anti-fairy tale for the modern era.

Astrophysicist Dmitri Malianov is on the precipice of a major discovery - a Nobel Prize-worthy breakthrough. Yet, home alone in his Leningrad apartment, his work is beginning to be stymied. Strange and improbable distractions are mounting around him - and he is not alone. Across the city, his scientific colleagues, all close to their own Eureka moments, keep finding themselves subject to countless mysterious interruptions. Are they paranoid, or is a malign authority conspiring against them...?

A science fiction classic from two Russian masters, One Billion Years to the End of the World is at turns both hilarious and suspenseful, while at its heart hiding a quiet yet biting critique of Soviet totalitarianism.