By Travel + Leisure
May 20, 2009

Misha Vainberg, the hero of T+L contributor Gary Shteyngart's new novel, Absurdistan (Random House; $25), is an American at heart and a Russian by birth—but until he gets a visa, he's stuck in a faux former Eastern-bloc country. It's a cunning look at the theater of the absurd that surrounds the post–Cold War era.