Siberia on Fire brings together some of the best stories and essays by Valentin Rasputin, widely regarded as the finest writer in the Soviet Union today. Although the people and places that make up his fiction are characteristically Siberian, Rasputin's broad appeal and international recognition stem from universal themes—the interdependent elements of nature; the cultural and historical continuum maintained by past, present, and future generations; and the clash between modern and traditional mores. Rasputin was born in a small Siberian village on the Angara River in 1937 and educated at Irkutsk University. His work displays his continuing concern about the economic development of the vast wilderness of Siberia and its effects on the land and the people. Siberia has undergone monumental changes brought on by the excesses of Stalinism in the twenties and thirties, the losses and deprivations during World War II, and the massive construction and modernization projects of more recent decades. A prominent feature of Rasputin's fiction, often associated with the "village prose" movement, is the portrayal of a traditional way of life that is vanishing along with huge tracts of forests and three-hundred-year-old villages.