Pushkin Collection
5 total works
'The Gazdanov revival... is nothing short of a literary event' --TLS
In a Paris underpass, dirty and dressed in rags, stands a silent beggar. In the evening, he walks the deserted streets; at night, he sleeps in a small, foetid crate vacated by the death of another beggar. He is poor and he is ill, but, on reflection, he is free.
Never before published in English, this landmark collection represents a series of six compact miniatures by modernist master Gaito Gazdanov. From the exploits of a secret agent on a mission to Soviet Russia, to the drama of an adulterous affair with the power to destroy a woman and her family, these lyrical stories have it all.
Translated with intelligence and grace by Bryan Karetnyk, The Beggar and Other Stories shows the author of The Spectre of Alexander Wolf at his very best.
'A tantalising mystery... a mesmerising work of literature' Antony Beevor
'Truly troubling, a weird meditation on death, war and sex' Paris Review
A superb early postmodern classic by one of Nabokov's fellow émigré writers, rediscovered after more than half a century
A man comes across a short story which recounts in minute detail his killing of a soldier, long ago - from the victim's point of view. It's a story that should not exist, and whose author can only be a dead man.
So begins the strange quest for its elusive writer: 'Alexander Wolf'.
A singular classic, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf is a psychological thriller and existential inquiry into guilt and redemption, coincidence and fate, love and death.
Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk
Gaito Gazdanov (1903-1971) joined the White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from the 1920s onwards, he eventually became a nocturnal taxi-driver and quickly gained prominence on the literary scene as a novelist, essayist, critic and short-story writer, and was greatly acclaimed by Maxim Gorky, among others.
A millionaire is killed. A golden statuette of a Buddha goes missing. A penniless student, who is afflicted by dream-like fits, is arrested and accused of murder.
Slipping between the menacing dream world of the student's fevered imagination, and the dark back alleys of the Paris underworld, The Buddha's Return is part detective novel, part philosophical thriller, and part love story.
In typically crisp, unfussy prose, Gazdanov's delicately balanced novel is an irresistibly hypnotic masterpiece from one of Russia's most talented émigré writers.
Gaito Gazdanov (1903-1971) joined the White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from the 1920s onwards, he eventually became a nocturnal taxi-driver and quickly gained prominence on the literary scene as a novelist, essayist, critic and short-story writer, and was greatly admired by Maxim Gorky, among others. His 1949 novel The Spectre of Alexander Wolf was published by Pushkin Press to great acclaim in 2013.
First English translation of this novel by the author of The Spectre of Alexander Wolf
While summering on the French Riviera, the young Seryozha secretly becomes the lover of the much older Liza - who is also his father's mistress. As autumn approaches, they reluctantly part: Liza to return to Paris, Seryozha to take up his studies at university in London. When he finds out about their affair, Seryozha's father attempts to convince Liza to leave his son, for the sake of the boy's own happiness. She finally gives in - but a sudden, fatal catastrophe changes everything...
Gazdanov's second novel is proof of his wide-ranging talents: originally written before his celebrated noir experiments The Spectre of Alexander Wolf and The Buddha's Return, The Flight blends psychological drama, illicit romance and moments of both comedy and lyricism into a modernist take on the traditional Russian nineteenth-century realist novel epitomised by Tolstoy.
