Drawing together episodes of rich atmosphere, this novel is as deep and brooding as the Paris nights that serve as its backdrop. Russian writer Gaito Gazdanov arrived in Paris, as so many did, betwee
It was a movement so artfully anarchic, and so quickly suppressed, that readers only began to discover its strange and singular brilliance three decades after it was extinguished-and then only in sami
Drawing on the tragic past of Russia and its empire to comment on the issues and ideas of his day, Leo Tolstoy wrote the stories in Divine and Human and Other Stories during the chaos surrounding the
Beyond their acute depiction of life in the Soviet Union, Yuri Trifonov's novellas offer an extraordinarily rich literary encounter in the tradition of great nineteenth-century Russian writing. "Anoth
One of the most important works of twentieth-century Russian prose, Kotik Letaev, the great symbolist novel of childhood, depicts the emergence of consciousness and its development into self-conscious
With its angst-ridden, sensualist hero, Anne Garborg's classic invites comparison with the classic European decadent novels of the turn of the century--Huysmans's Against the Grain and Wilde's The Pic
In this retelling of the biblical story, King Solomon commissions Ethan the Scribe to write the official history of King David. In return for the finest cooking in the land and the wages of a minor pr
Originally published in Poland in 1948, and acclaimed as one of the finest postwar Polish novels, Ashes and Diamonds takes place in the spring of 1945, as the nation is in the throes of its transforma
Patterned on the novels of the Bronte sisters, Antonina is a poignant account of a young Russian whose life is shaped by the cruel neglect of her stepparents, the financial ruin of her father and husb
Like traditional fairy tales, Capek's fantastic parables contain marvels and supernatural beings, fairies, elves, and talking animals; their plots stem from folk traditions where innocence triumphs.
A classic of Soviet realism, Time, Forward! captures the enthusiasm and optimism of the first Five-Year Plan in its portrayal of the construction of Magnitogorsk, an enormous metallurgical plant consi
Alain Robbe-Grillet has long been regarded as the chief spokesman for the controversial nouveau roman. This collection of brilliant short pieces introduces the reader to those techniques employed by R
A fine example of Village Prose from the post-Stalin era, Farewell to Matyora decries the loss of the Russian peasant culture to the impersonal, soulless march of progress.It is the final summer of th
The novel begins with Costantino Ledda's conviction and sentencing for the murder of his cruel uncle. Though innocent of the crime, he accepts the guilty verdict as punishment for marrying Giovanna Er
Winner of the 1926 Novel Prize for LiteratureAfter serving time in mainland Italy for a minor theft, Elias Portolu returns home to Nuoro, in rural Sardinia. Lonely and vulnerable after his prison exil
Sofia Petrovna is Lydia Chukovskaya's fictional account of the Great Purge. Sofia is a Soviet Everywoman, a doctor's widow who works as a typist in a Leningrad publishing house. When her beloved son i
This volume offers two of Druzhinin's essential works in their first English translations. Polinka Saks, his most essential short novel, is an epistolary tale of a romantic triangle involving an older
Winner, 1997 National Book Award for PoetryWinner, 1993 PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation PrizePublished in 1776 and considered the first Polish novel ever written, The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas
In this classic of Russian humor and social commentary, a fired cable fitter goes on a binge and hopes a train to Petushki (where his "most beloved of trollops" awaits). On the way he bestows upon ang
Turn-of-the-century Vienna was the scene of tremendous social and artistic upheaval. Arthur Schnitzler's novel The Road to the Open brilliantly captures the complex world of Freud, Mahler, Strauss, an
Vsevolod Ivanov's personal experiences in Siberia and Central Asia during the Revolution and Civil War, set against a childhood and youth wandering that vast expanse, infuse his writing. Combining tra
