Valery Podoroga was one of the most important thinkers of his generation. Here his most famous work is translated into English for the first time giving a panoramic view of Russian writing, focusing on the work of Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Andrei Bely. He identifies these authors as pioneers in creating a new form of mimesis or vision of the world.

In Mimesis Podoroga develops and elaborates his analytic anthropological approach to these authors with startling effect.