October 22, 2020 One Billion Years to the End of the World by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky Translated by Antonina W. Bouis Reviewed by Karen Langley Science fiction writing often gets a bad press; dismissed as lightweight genre writing, mocked for…
March 24, 2020 Fandango and Other Stories by Alexander Grin Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a wave of wonderful new translations of ‘lost’ Russian authors of the…
August 1, 2019 Necropolis by Vladislav Khodasevich Translated by Sarah Vitali Review by Karen Langley, The Russian Library series from Columbia University Press has thrown up some marvellous treasures of literature…
October 4, 2018 Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar by Yuri Tynianov Translated by Susan Causey, Translation editor Vera Tsareva-Brauner Review by Karen Langley Recent years have seen a large number of works by Russian authors…
August 2, 2018 Sentimental Tales by Mikhail Zoshchenko Translated by Boris Dralyuk Review by Karen Langley Russian satirical writing has a rich heritage, stretching all the way back to the time of…
July 19, 2018 The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin Translated by Lisa Hayden Reviewed by Karen Langley You awake in a hospital bed. You have no memory of who you are or how…
April 12, 2018 The Golovlevs by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Translated by I.P. Foote Review by Karen Langley Back in SNB #13 I reviewed “The History of a Town” by Saltykov-Shchedrin, one of the…
February 1, 2018 The Russian Soul: Selections from A Writer’s Diary by Fyodor Dostoevsky Introduced by Rosamund Bartlett Translated by Kenneth Lantz / Olga Shartse Reviewed by Karen Langley Notting Hill Editions will probably need no introduction to…
December 7, 2017 City Folk and Country Folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov Reviewed by Karen Langley If asked to name any of the great Russian writers of the 19th century, most…
September 19, 2017 Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky, edited by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley In the anniversary year of the 1917 Russian Revolution a number of books have been issued which look at that…
August 15, 2017 Rapture by Iliazd Translated by Thomas J. Kitson Reviewed by Karen Langley The early 20th century was a time of great change and upheaval; it produced wars…
December 8, 2016 The History of a Town by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin Translated by I.P. Foote Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian literature has long had a tradition of satire stretching all the way back to Gogol,…
October 6, 2016 Rasputin and Other Ironies by Teffi Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson and Rose France Reviewed by Karen Langley One of my highlights from 2014 was the…
June 9, 2016 Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi Translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson and Irina Steinberg Reviewed by Karen Langley The Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War were…
April 12, 2016 The Flight by Gaito Gazdanov Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley As well as being the driving force behind the Stefan Zweig revival, Pushkin Press has also…
April 23, 2015 The Librarian by Mikhail Elizarov Translated by Andrew Bromfield Reviewed by Karen Langley We all believe in the transformative power of literature; however, what would happen if books really did change…
January 27, 2015 In the Twilight by Anton Chekhov Translated by Hugh Aplin Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Anton Chekhov, although possibly best known for his plays like The Cherry Orchard, is also…
January 21, 2015 Notes on a Cuff by Mikhail Bulgakov Translated by Roger Cockrell Reviewed by Karen Langley When Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov’s magnum opus The Master and Margarita was finally published, decades after his death,…
January 19, 2015 The Same Old Story by Ivan Goncharov Translated by Stephen Pearl Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Ivan Goncharov is known to most Anglophone readers for his novel Oblomov; indeed, with that…
December 4, 2014 The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol Translated by Anna Summers Reviewed by Karen Langley Russian author Nikolai Gogol, best known for satirical works like The Nose and Dead Souls, is not a name…
October 16, 2014 The Buddha’s Return by Gaito Gazdanov Translated by Bryan Karetnyk Reviewed by Karen Langley Following the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, many of that country’s beleaguered citizens escaped abroad,…
October 10, 2014 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy A New Translation by Rosamund Bartlett Written by Helen Rappaport Taking on one of the great novels of the nineteenth century is a huge…
July 9, 2014 Belkin’s Stories by Alexander Pushkin Translated and with commentary by Roger Clarke Reviewed by Karen Langley Alexander Pushkin is, of course, Russia’s national poet. Tragically killed in a duel…
April 10, 2014 Autobiography of a Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Translated by Joanne Turnbull Reviewed by Karen Langley Soviet Russia’s Best-Kept Literary Secret Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky could accurately be described as the lost writer of…
April 9, 2014 Born in Siberia by Tamara Astafieva Translated by Luba Loffe Reviewed by Karen Langley Speak, memory, that I may not forget the taste of roses, nor the sound of ashes…
