Black Snow - Softcover

Bulgakov, Mikhail

3.73

4,235 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1612192149 ISBN 13: 9781612192147

Publisher: Melville House Publishing, 2013

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A new edition of Bulgakov's blistering satire about the great Russian director Stanislavski, inventor of "Method acting," part of Melville House's reissue of the Bulgakov backlist in Michael Glenny's celebrated translations. In 1926, a play based on Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The White Guard" premiered at the prestigious Moscow Arts Theatre and it was an immediate and long-lasting success that laid the ground for the rest of Bulgakov's career as a playwright and novelist. But it was not an entirely positive experience, and this novel, written near the end of Bulgakov's life, skewers the theatrical fraternity he had been a part of for many years, and the Stalinist system of censorship that suppressed his work. "Black Snow" is the story of Maxudov, a young playwright whose play is chosen, almost at random, to be performed by the legendary Independent Theatre, and the chaos that ensues. The two co-directors of the theater, modeled after Stanislavski and his co-director, battle to control the production, star actresses throw daily fits, and with each rehearsal the chances of the play ever being ready to perform recedes. The ultimate backstage novel and a brilliant satire from one of the greatest modern Russian writers.

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Review:

"A masterpiece of black comedy." --The Irish Times

"The novel moves with mad exuberance." --The Independent

About the Author:

MIKHAIL BULGAKOV was born in Kiev on May 15th 1891. He graduated as a doctor but gave up the practice of medicine in 1920 to devote himself to literature. He went on to write some of the greatest novels in twentieth century Russian literature, including The White Guard, Heart of a Dog, and his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. He died in Moscow of kidney disease in 1940.

MICHAEL GLENNY (1927-1990) was one of the world's leading translators of Russian literature, translating the works of Gogol and Dostoevsky. But he was also famous for bringing the works of then-lesser-known dissident writers to the fore, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Georgi Vladimov. He was the first person to translate Mikhail Bulgakov into English.

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