A collection of "electric, heroically wrought" Russian short stories of violence, crime, and sex set in Ukraine-for fans of hard-boiled fiction by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (John Updike)
Odessa was a uniquely Jewish city, and the stories of Isaac Babel-a Jewish man, writing in Russian and born in Odessa-uncover its tough underbelly around the time of the Russian Revolution. Gangsters, prostitutes, beggars, smugglers: no one escapes the pungent, sinewy force of Babel's pen.
From the tales of the magnetic cruelty of Benya Krik-infamous mob boss, and one of the great anti-heroes of Russian literature-to the devastating semi-autobiographical account of a young Jewish boy caught up in a pogrom, this collection of stories is considered one of the great masterpieces of twentieth-century Russian literature.
Translated with precision and sensitivity by Boris Dralyuk, whose rendering of the rich Odessan argot is pitch-perfect, Odessa Stories is the first ever stand-alone collection of Babel's narratives set in the city and includes the original stories as well as later tales.
"The salty speech of the city's inhabitants is wonderfully rendered in a new translation by Boris Dralyuk . . . Hard-boiled language reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett." -Vice
| ISBN: | 9781782274735 |
| Publication date: | 1st November 2018 |
| Author: | I Babel |
| Publisher: | Pushkin Press an imprint of Steerforth Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 192 pages |
| Genres: |
Anthologies: general Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction |