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One of The Economist''s 2011 Books of the Year

From the author of Either/Or and The Idiot, Elif Batuman's The Possessed presents the true but unlikely stories of lives devotedAbsurdly! Melancholically! Beautifully!to the Russian Classics.

No one who read Batuman''s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. Babel in California told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel''s last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel''s secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.

Batuman''s subsequent piecesfor The New Yorker, Harper''s Magazine

The Possessed

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    A Paperback / softback by Elif Batuman

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      Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
      Publication Date: Publication Date: 16/02/2010
      ISBN13: 9780374532185, 978-0374532185
      ISBN10: 0374532184
      Also in:
      Literary studies: general

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      One of The Economist''s 2011 Books of the Year

      From the author of Either/Or and The Idiot, Elif Batuman's The Possessed presents the true but unlikely stories of lives devotedAbsurdly! Melancholically! Beautifully!to the Russian Classics.

      No one who read Batuman''s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. Babel in California told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel''s last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel''s secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.

      Batuman''s subsequent piecesfor The New Yorker, Harper''s Magazine

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