<P>Here we have the anatomy of the contemporary writer, as imagined by the pseudonymous, "post-exotic" Antoine Volodine. His writers aren't the familiar, bitter, alcoholic kind, however; nor are they great, romantic, tortured geniuses; and least of all are they media darlings and socialites. No, in Volodine's universe, the writer is pitted in a pathetic struggle against silence and sickness -- that is, when she's not about to be murdered by random lunatics or fellow inmates. Consisting of seven loosely interlocking stories, <i>Writers</i> is a window onto a chaotic reality where expressing oneself brings along with it repercussions both absurd and frighteningly familiar.</P>