Roadside Picnic (Russian: Пикник на обочине,
Piknik na obochine, ) is a short
science fiction novel written by
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky in 1971. By 1998, 38 editions of the novel were published in 20 countries. The novel was first translated to English by
Antonina W. Bouis. The preface to the first American edition of the novel (MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, New York, 1977) was written by
Theodore Sturgeon. The film
Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, is loosely based on the novel, with a screenplay written by the Strugatsky brothers.