In the winter of 1854 Tolstoy, then an officer in the Russian army, arranged to be transferred to the besieged town of Sebastopol. Wishing to see at first hand the action of what would become known as the Crimean War, he was spurred on by a fierce patriot
Set in Reykjavík, this novel charts the changes that took place when the rural community clashed with the American popular culture brought by American troops. The story concerns two brothers, one of whom returns to "Devil's Island" with an American accen
In 1851, at the age of twenty-two, Tolstoy joined the Russian army. The four years he spent as a soldier were among the most significant in his life and inspired the tales collected here. In ?The Cossacks,? Tolstoy tells the story of Olenin, a cultured Ru
Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and yet to be free of them. This duality of vision infuses his work with a powerful energy from the earliest tales including 'Old Shloym
Poor Folk was Dostoyevsky's first great triumph in fiction and the work that looks forward to the double-acts and obsessions of his later genius. It takes place in a world of office , lodging-house and seamstress's rooms and consists of an impoverished lo
