Omon Ra

Blurb

Omon Ra is a short novel by the modern Russian writer Victor Pelevin, published in 1992 by the Tekst Publishing House in Moscow. It was the first novel by Pelevin, who until then was known for his very short stories.
Pelevin traces the absurd fate of the fictional protagonist, named Omon by his policeman father, placing him in circumstances both completely fantastic and at the same time very recognizable in everyday detail. Pelevin uses this story to illustrate the underlying absurdity of the Soviet establishment with its fixation on "heroic achievements" in those fields of human endeavor which could be most favorably presented to the outside world—science, the military, but most significantly space exploration.