...again, in his introduction to Kolyma Stories, a new and extended English-language edition of Shalamov's great Gulag story cycle, the stories' translator Donald Rayfield relates how in "Permafrost" (a story I have yet to read; it will be included in a companion volume), Shalamov is shown to be "responsible for the suicide of a young man whom he refused to allow to go on washing floors in the hospital and dispatched to hard labor back in the mines. ...he died earlier than the date ofhis death, quite an important detail for his future biographers. First published in German in 2016 and then released in this country (in a fine translation by Michael Hoffman) late last year, this book, by the Swiss writer Peter Stamm, is short, spare, and haunting; it lingers, unsettlingly, in the memory. ...later, it's not so straightforward), it is Thomas's journey that draws the attention. 1 Hazards of Time Travel: A Novel, by Joyce Carol Oates; Ecco, 366 pages, $26.99. Kolyma Stories, by Varlam Shalamov; New York Review Books Classics, 768 pages, $22.95. 3 The Kremlin Ball, by Curzio Malaparte; New York Review Books Classics, 240 pages, $15.95.