Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man as to other poets. His fascination with sound and form, linguistic metamorphosis and variation made him a sort of 'poet's poet', the doyen, if not the envy, of his contemporaries, (Pasternak among them). His poetry is strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour. It is of...

This story is about a guy named Daniel Harper who goes back to his hometown, Cedar Hollow, after being gone for twelve years. He left after a fire killed his younger brother Caleb, a fire everyone quietly blamed him for, even though he was never convicted.When he comes back, it's not to reconnect or make peace. It's because something never sat right with him. And pretty quickly, it becomes obvious the town is still hiding things.As Daniel starts digging, he realizes Caleb h...

“Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century.”—The Boston GlobeIn this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True to his contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the...

'Absolutely, definitively alone', a young Jewish student in Romania tries to make sense of a world that has decided he doesn't belong. Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and gambling, meeting revolutionaries, zealots, lovers and libertines, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness that falls over Europe, and threatens to destroy him.Mihail Sebastian's 1934 masterpiece, now translated into English for the first time, was written amid the anti-Semitism which wou...

An NYRB Classics OriginalWinner of the 2014 PEN Translation PrizeWinner of the 2014 Read Russia PrizeThe stakes are wildly high in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s fantastic and blackly comic philosophical fables, which abound in nested narratives and wild paradoxes. This new collection of eleven mind-bending and spellbinding tales includes some of Krzhizhanovsky’s most dazzling conceits: a provincial journalist who moves to Moscow finds his existence consumed by the auto...

'between the life we live and the life we feel...there is the invisible border, like a narrow gate' Set in a boarding school in a remote area of the Habsburg Empire at the turn of the last century, The Confusions of Young Törless is an intense study of an adolescent's psychological development as he struggles to come to terms with his conflicting emotions. Through his relationship with two other boys Törless is led into sadistic and sexual encounters with a third ...

An enchanting collection of the very best of Russian poetry, edited by acclaimed translator Robert Chandler together with poets Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski.In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, poetry's pre-eminence in Russia was unchallenged, with Pushkin and his contemporaries ushering in the 'Golden Age' of Russian literature. Prose briefly gained the high ground in the second half of the nineteenth century, but poetry again became dominan...

Hilarious and trenchant, Reliable Essays collects the most memorable works of criticism and travel writing from well-loved author and broadcaster, Clive James. With an introduction by Julian Barnes.'[An] intellectual as well as a joker, a wise man as well as a wit' – ObserverWhether discussing arts, politics or culture, Clive James opens up new avenues for thought whilst never being less than wonderfully entertaining. From...

Hitler's autobiographical book Mein Kampf, the official doctrine of the NAZI regime during WWII, is not a book that many would consider to read. Modern society is generally very well acquainted with Hitler and the ultimate outcome of his philosophical stances and will automatically denounce such notions based on a purely humanitarian and moral standpoint. The book remains illegal in many parts of the world (particularly Europe) and it rightfully considered one of the most powerful, destruc...

“Obscenely outrageous and yet brilliantly reflective of a paranoid reality that has become universal. It is the best of Roth.” —The New York Times Book ReviewIn quest of the unpublished manuscript of a martyred Yiddish writer, the American novelist Nathan Zuckerman travels to Soviet-occupied Prague in the mid-1970s. There, in a nation straightjacketed by totalitarian Communism, he discovers a literary predicament, marked by institutionaliz...

'In recent decades, interest in hunger artists has greatly diminished.' Kafka published two collections of short stories in his lifetime, A Country Doctor: Little Tales (1919) and A Hunger Artist: Four Stories (1924). Both collections are included in their entirety in this edition, which also contains other, uncollected stories and a selection of posthumously published works that have become part of the Kafka canon. Enigmatic, satirical, often bleakly humorous, these stories approach human...

In this clear and detailed reading guide, we’ve done all the hard work for you!Animal Farm by George Orwell is an allegory of the early communist regime in Russia. It tells the story of a group of animals who overthrow the owner of their farm and make their own set of rules to govern their existence.This practical and insightful reading guide includes:• A complete plot summary• Character studies• Key t...