Search results for ""author nina berberova""

Writing with a resonating clarity, unsentimental yet full of human sympathy, Nina Berberova stands as one of the treasures of twentieth-century literature and the continuance of the great Russian tradition. The Ladies from St. Petersburg contains three novellas which chronologically paint a picture of the dawn of the Russian Revolution, the flight from its turmoil, and the plight of an exile in a new and foreign place all of which Berberova knew from her own personal experience. In the title story the protagonists are taking a vacation, unaware that their lives are about to be irrevocably changed. In “Zoya Andreyevna,” an elegant, privileged woman, in headlong flight, falls ill among unfriendly strangers who resent her wealth and position even though she does not flaunt them. In “The Big City,” an emigrant lands in a surreal New York City, a place that is not yet, and may never be, his home.

Read more less

The greatest collection by one of the great Russian writers is now back in print. First published in Europe in the 1930s and '40s, these searing, evocative stories by the late emigre writer Nina Berberova (1901-1993) are portraits of the lives of Russian exiles in Paris on the eve of World War II. The protagonists range from housekeepers and waiters to shabby-genteel aristocrats and intellectualsbut all are united in a haunting displacement from their pasts, and all share a troubling uncertainty about the future.

Read more less

On a crisp September morning, trouble comes to the Gorbatovs' farm. Having fled revolution and civil war in Russia, the family has worked tirelessly to establish themselves as crop farmers in Provence, their hopes of returning home a distant dream. While young Ilya Stepanovich is committed to this new way of life, his step-brother Vasya looks only to the past. With the arrival of a letter from Paris, a plot to lure Vasya back to Russia begins in earnest, and Ilya must set out for the capital to try to preserve his family's fragile stability. The first novel by the celebrated Russian writer Nina Berberova, The Last and the First is an elegant and devastating portrayal of the internal struggles of a generation of émigrés. Appearing for the first time in English in a stunning translation by the prize-winning Marian Schwartz, it shows Berberova in full command of her gifts as a writer of masterful poise and psychological insight.

Read more less

First published in Russian in 1921 and never translated, Andrey Bely's long narrative poem--considered to be one of the great achievements of Russian Modernism--is translated to English here. A poet, critic, philosopher, and novelist, Bely was a leading figure among the Russian Symbolists, and The First Encounter is thought to be his greatest work in verse. The poem is autobiographical and reflects turn of-the-century Moscow with its mixture of entrenched positivism and new spiritualistic trends, cultural variety and the upheaval of the time. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Read more less