Synopses & Reviews
One of the great masterpieces of Russian literature, the
Red Cavalry cycle retains today the shocking freshness that made Babel's reputation when the stories were first published in the 1920s. Using his own experiences as a journalist and propagandist with the Red Army during the war against Poland, Babel brings to life an astonishing cast of characters from the exuberant, violent era of early Soviet history: commissars and colonels, Cossacks and peasants, and among them the bespectacled, Jewish writer/intellectual, observing it all and trying to establish his role in the new Russia.
Drawn from the acclaimed, award-winning Complete Works of Isaac Babel, this volume includes all of the Red Cavalry cycle; Babel's 1920 diary, from which the material for the fiction was drawn; and his preliminary sketches for the stories the whole constituting a fascinating picture of a great writer turning life into art.
Review
"Amazing not only as literature but as biography." Richard Bernstein, New York Times
Review
"Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic." James Wood, The New Republic
Review
"My favorite writer of fiction is Isaac Babel, primarily for one book, . I find [it] endlessly haunting for its blunt yet somehow elusive style...it invariably leaves me feeling off balance and on edge. And I can't stop rereading it." Richard Price
Review
"Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic commentaries on the desecration of revolutionary activity." New York Times Book Review
Review
"From the very first story, opens like a cannon shot. In glorious, expressionist description, a cavalry division has forded the Zbrucz River at night...Amid beauty, amid courage and even warmth that are often overwhelming, there are butchery and murder, acts that can never be forgiven, only forgotten, and Babel does not let you forget." James Wood The New Republic
Synopsis
One of the great masterpieces of Russian literature, the cycle retains today the shocking freshness that made Babel's reputation when the stories were first published in the 1920s. Using his own experiences as a journalist and propagandist with the Red Army during the war against Poland, Babel brings to life an astonishing cast of characters from the exuberant, violent era of early Soviet history: commissars and colonels, Cossacks and peasants, and among them the bespectacled, Jewish writer/intellectual, observing it all and trying to establish his role in the new Russia. Drawn from the acclaimed, award-winning , this volume includes all of the cycle; Babel's 1920 diary, from which the material for the fiction was drawn; and his preliminary sketches for the stories--the whole constituting a fascinating picture of a great writer turning life into art.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 314-320).
About the Author
Isaac Babel was a journalist, playwright, and short story writer, whose works include the Russian masterpieces Red Cavalry and The Odessa Tales. He was arrested and executed in a Soviet prison in 1940.Nathalie Babel, his daughter, edited two other books of Babel's writing and is the author of Hugo and Dostoevsky.Peter Constantine's most recent translations are Sophocles' Theban Trilogy, The Essential Writings of Machiavelli, and The Bird is a Raven by Benjamin Lebert, which was awarded the Helen und Kurt Wolff Translation Prize. He was awarded the PEN Translation Prize for Six Early Stories by Thomas Mann, and the National Translation Award for The Undiscovered Chekhov: Thirty-Eight New Stories. His translation of the complete works of Isaac Babel received the Koret Jewish Literature Award and a National Jewish Book Award citation. He has recently translated Gogol's Taras Bulba, Tolstoy's The Cossacks, and Voltaire's Candide for Modern Library. He was one of the editors for A Century of Greek Poetry: 1900-2000, and is a senior editor at Conjunctions.Michael Dirda, who won a Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism at the