Synopses & Reviews
For fans of fairy tales and the literary supernatural: a unique collection of Russian short stories from the last 200 years In these folk tales, young women go on long and perilous quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese, and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Some of the stories here were collected by folklorists during the last two centuries, while the others are reworkings of oral tales by four of the greatest writers in Russian literature: Nadezhda Teffi, Pavel Bazhov, Andrey Platonov, and Alexander Pushkin, author of
Eugene Onegin, the classic Russian novel in verse. Among the many classic stories included here are the tales of Baba Yaga, Vasilisa the Beautiful, Father Frost, and the Frog Princess.
Synopsis
An enchanting collection of the very best of Russian poetry, edited by acclaimed translator Robert Chandler together with poets Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, poetry's pre-eminence in Russia was unchallenged, with Pushkin and his contemporaries ushering in the 'Golden Age' of Russian literature. Prose briefly gained the high ground in the second half of the nineteenth century, but poetry again became dominant in the 'Silver Age' (the early twentieth century), when belief in reason and progress yielded once more to a more magical view of the world. During the Soviet era, poetry became a dangerous, subversive activity; nevertheless, poets such as Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova continued to defy the censors. This anthology traces Russian poetry from its Golden Age to the modern era, including work by several great poets - Georgy Ivanov and Varlam Shalamov among them - in captivating modern translations by Robert Chandler and others. The volume also includes a general introduction, chronology and individual introductions to each poet.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Synopsis
This original anthology of short stories covers two centuries of Russian literary tradition, from the early nineteenth century to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond, and includes not only well-known classics but also modern masterpieces—many of them previously censored.
- First time in Penguin Classics
- Features an introduction to the history of the Russian short story, prefaces to the individual writers, chronology, explanatory notes, and suggestions for further reading
About the Author
Robert Chandler is an award-winning poet and translator from Russian, French, and Greek, and the editor of Penguin Classics’
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida. He lives in the U.K.
Sibelan Forrester is a professor of Russian at Swarthmore College. She lives in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.