Pilnyak, B. A. The Ripening of Fruit: [Novella] (Sozrevanie plodov), 1936. In Russian.

Б. А. Пильняк. Созревание плодов: [Повесть].
Иллюстрации художника А. П. Могилевского.
Москва: Государственное издательство «Художественная литература» (Гослитиздат), 1936.
291, [5] с., 1 л. фронт. (ил.) : ил. ; 17,5х13,5 см. В издательском коленкоровом переплете с тиснением. Иллюстрированные форзацы.
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B. A. Pilnyak.
The Ripening of Fruit: [Novella] (Sozrevanie plodov).
Illustrations by the artist A. P. Mogilevsky.
Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1936.
291, [5] pp., 1 sheet frontispiece (illus.) : illus. ; 17.5x13.5 cm. In publisher's calico binding with embossing. Illustrated endpapers.

This 1936 edition of "The Ripening of Fruit" is one of the final lifetime publications by Boris Pilnyak, a towering figure of the Soviet literary avant-garde. The text provides a deep dive into the internal logic of the Socialist Realist era's complex pressures, including the arrangement of narrative layers that reflect Pilnyak's attempt to navigate the tightening ideological constraints of the mid-1930s. Written during a period when the author was under increasing scrutiny, the novella explores themes of labor, transformation, and the "ripening" of the new Soviet society, specifically set against the backdrop of industrial and artistic life in Palekh.  As a vital primary source, this volume documents the final creative phase of an author whose life would be tragically cut short; Pilnyak was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938 during the Great Purge. The book is an exquisite example of Soviet book design of the era, featuring stylized illustrations by A. P. Mogilevsky, decorative endpapers, and an elegant embossed cloth binding. Given that Pilnyak's works were suppressed and removed from libraries following his arrest, copies of this 1936 edition are a significant bibliographical rarity for collectors of repressed literature, historians of the 1930s Soviet intelligentsia, and scholars of modernist prose.