The Enchanted Wanderer: And Other Stories - Hardcover

Leskov, N. S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307268829 ISBN 13: 9780307268822

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2013

Synopsis

The award-winning translators of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Gogol now bring us a Russian writer ripe for rediscovery, whose earthy and exuberant stories, famous in his own country, have never before been adequately translated into English.

Leskov was Chekhov’s favorite writer and was greatly admired by Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky. His short stories—innovative in form, richly playful in language, now tragic, now satirical, now wildly comic in subject matter—exploded the prevailing traditions of nineteenth-century Russian fiction and paved the way for such famous literary successors as Mikhail Bulgakov. These seventeen stories are visionary and fantastic, and yet always grounded in reality, peopled by outsized characters that include serfs, princes, military officers, Gypsy girls, wayward monks, horse dealers, nomadic Tartars, and, above all, the ubiquitous figure of the garrulous, enthralling, not entirely trustworthy storyteller.

In stories long considered classics, Leskov takes the speech patterns of oral storytelling and spins them in new and startlingly modern ways, presenting seemingly artless yarns that are in fact highly sophisticated. It is the great gift of this new translation that it allows us to hear the many vibrant voices of Leskov’s singular art.

About this title

Review:

"Outstanding. . . . A worthy monument to add to your bookshelf of prized Russian literature." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Vibrantly translated. . . . Thanks to this delicious new collection, the time is once again ripe for Leskov's resurgence." --The New York Times Book Review

"Surreal, gripping, violent but comic tales." --Margaret Atwood

"Stories as strong as fables and crazy as life." --Alice Munro

"We can recognize this Leskov, in English, as a king among Russian storytellers. . . . It is a testament both to his own resilience and to the unmatched talent of his translators that he has arrived in such brilliant color." --The Quarterly Conversation

"[A] forgotten genius. . . . Leskov's genius lies in the modesty of his narrators, their helplessness before the art of narrative." --The Daily Beast

"Leskov remains pungently and overpoweringly Russian. . . . Leskov was in many regards--if not in his language--a very modern writer, being, together with Zola and Dickens, among the very greatest journalist-novelists of the nineteenth century." --The Times Literary Supplement (London)

"Intensely Russian. . . . Rambling and yet engrossing. . . . Anyone interested in the last decades of Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution will be happy to be led into its vast expanses and depths by such an intelligent and always interested guide." --The Scotsman

"Russians have revered Nikolai Leskov's artistry for over a century, but he is little known in the West because the story-telling voices from deep in the Russian heartland that he skillfully ventriloquizes in his tales are notoriously difficult to translate. Pevear and Volokhonsky's collection of Leskov's best-known works bears all the hallmarks of their previous successes--absolute faithfulness to the author's meaning and manner, ingenious finds and formulations, and fluency in English." --Vladimir Alexandrov, B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Yale University

"Without Leskov there would be no Bulgakov, no Chekhov, but also no García Márquez and Julio Cortázar. . . . Leskov is the essential storyteller: he does not portray life, he creates it in all its wonder and terror and magic." --Alberto Manguel

"Nikolai Leskov's absence from classic Russian literature lists must end now! If you like Russian, and you like funny, you will love Leskov." --Gary Shteyngart

"Leskov was celebrated in his own time by luminaries no less than Tolstoy and Chekhov. . . . Seasoned with equal parts humor and social commentary, Leskov's stories prove gentle but infectious portraits of the sorrow and joys of Russian peasantry." --Publishers Weekly (starred)

"A welcome new translation of Leskov's grand metaphysical romp, a hallmark of nineteenth-century Russian literature. . . . A literate delight, and a book to look forward to reading more than once." --Kirkus Reviews

"[Pevear and Volokhonsky] have managed a formidable job, maintaining the master's voice and allowing these essential Russian stories to retain a distinct nineteenth-century flavor while keeping them fresh and alive for the modern reader." --BookPage

About the Author:

Nikolai Leskov was born in 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo in Russia. He began his writing career as a journalist living in Kiev, and later settled in St. Petersburg, where he published many short stories and novellas, includingThe Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), The Sealed Angel (1873), The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), andLefty (1882). He died in February 1895.

Together, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov, and Pasternak. They were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for their versions of Dostoevsky’sThe Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina), and their translation of Dostoevsky’sDemons was one of three nominees for the same prize. They are married and live in France.

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0307268829
• ISBN 13: 9780307268822
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 575