Scholar, satirist, and critic, Andrei Sinyavsky was considered so politically dangerous to the Russian communist regime that he was sentenced to the gulag for seven years. Given the grim political circumstances in which he wrote, it is hardly surprising that many theorists have overlooked the strain of dark humor that runs through many of his writings. The first in-depth examination of Sinyavsky's satirical side, Literary Insinuations: Sorting out Sinyavsky's Irreverance is one of the few English-language works on this brilliant author. Walter Kolonosky combines rich historical detail with close textual analysis to produce a study of playful and provocative writing which ties together many loose ends in Sinyavsky scholarship.