Rasputin and Other Ironies - Softcover

Teffi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782272178 ISBN 13: 9781782272175

Publisher: Pushkin Press, 2016

Synopsis

'Modern Ukraine could do with some reporters as wise and humane as Teffi' Literary Review

A new collection of Teffi's best autobiographical non-fiction writings

Ranging from portraits of Rasputin and Lenin to observations on the Russian Revolution, and from profiles of cultural figures to moving domestic scenes, this short collection includes writings by the inimitable Teffi never before published in English. Everything is here - politics, society, art and literature, love and family life - and all is told in Teffi's multifaceted style: amusing, sincerely moving, ironic and always honest, pervaded by an intensely felt understanding of humanity's simultaneous tragedy and absurdity.

(1872-1952) wrote poems, plays, stories, satires and feuilletons, and was renowned in Russia for her wit and powers of observation. Following her emigration in 1919 she settled in Paris, where she became a leading figure in the émigré literary scene. Now her genius has been rediscovered by a new generation of readers, and she once again enjoys huge acclaim in Russia and across the world. Her short-story collection Subtly Worded and her memoir Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea are also published by Pushkin Press.

About this title

Review

'[Teffi has a] sense of the big things of life somehow disguised in the small... Her recollections of [Lenin]... are riveting [and] penetrating' -- Financial Times

'By bringing together [Memories and Rasputin and Other Irones]... the editors present a different Teffi - a chronicler of the tragedy of the Russian revolution' -- The World Today

'Teffi can write in more registers than you might think, and is capable of being heartbreaking as well as very funny. I wish she were still alive, and I could have met her... I can't recommend her strongly enough' -- Nicholas Lezard. Guardian

'Her range is as broad as her prose is buoyant' -- New Statesman

'A gifted satirist and social observer' -- Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

'Teffi's brilliance at capturing the dark comedy of her milieu should no longer prevent her from being recognized as an important European writer' -- TLS

'Like Nabokov, Platonov, and many other great Russian prose writers, Teffi was a poet who turned to prose but continued to write with a poet's sensitivity to tone and rhythm. Like Chekhov, she fuses wit, tragedy, and a remarkable capacity for observation; there are few human weaknesses she did not relate to with compassion and understanding' --Robert Chandler, New Yorker

'[Conveys] Teffi's characteristic mixture of precision, comic timing and evasiveness' -- Times Literary Supplement

'A joy to read' -- Shiny New Books

'Teffi was not only a great wit and an impeccable stylist, but one of the twentieth century's most perceptive and clear-headed observers' --PEN Atlas

'One of the great twentieth-century writers. At their best her short stories are to my mind the equal of Chekhov's. I doubt if anyone has written with such luminous clarity of what it means to live in a time of chaos' --John Gray

About the Author

Teffi (1872-1952) wrote poems, plays, stories, satires and feuilletons, and was renowned in Russia for her wit and powers of observation. Following her emigration in 1919 she settled in Paris, where she became a leading figure in the émigré literary scene. Now her genius has been rediscovered by a new generation of readers, and she once again enjoys huge acclaim in Russia and across the world. Her short-story collection Subtly Worded is also published by Pushkin Press, and Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea, her account of her final journey across Russia and into exile, will also be published in May 2016.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pushkin Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1782272178
• ISBN 13: 9781782272175
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224