{"product_id":"memories-isbn-9781590179512","title":"Memories","description":"WINNER OF THE 2018 READ RUSSIA PRIZE AND THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BEST BOOK IN TRANSLATION IN 2017\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eConsidered Teffi’s single greatest work, \u003ci\u003eMemories: From Moscow to the Black Sea\u003c\/i\u003e is a deeply personal account of the author’s last months in Russia and  Ukraine, suffused with her acute awareness of the political currents  churning around her, many of which have now resurfaced.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1918,  in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Teffi, whose  stories and journalism had made her a celebrity in Moscow, was invited  to read from her work in Ukraine. She accepted the invitation eagerly,  though she had every intention of returning home. As it happened, her  trip ended four years later in Paris, where she would spend the rest of  her life in exile. None of this was foreseeable when she arrived in  German-occupied Kiev to discover a hotbed of artistic energy and  experimentation. When Kiev fell several months later to Ukrainian  nationalists, Teffi fled south to Odessa, then on to the port of  Novorossiysk, from which she embarked at last for Constantinople. Danger  and death threaten throughout \u003ci\u003eMemories\u003c\/i\u003e, even as the book  displays the brilliant style, keen eye, comic gift, and deep feeling  that have made Teffi one of the most beloved of twentieth-century  Russian writers.“Despite the backdrop of terror, war, death and loss, Teffi’s world becomes somewhere we do not want to leave…Teffi, somehow, makes some of the bleakest years of Russian history brighter; the country shrinks to the size of a village in which its occupants are a community, living, working together and helping each other.\" —Claire Kohda Hazelton, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Poignant reflections of a beloved Russian humorist as she fled her  homeland on the eve of Bolshevik victory....Throughout, the author's  characterizations are precise and even ruthless, and she captures the  tense mood of paranoia and sorrow of the refugee. Fluently translated by  several hands and introduced by Teffi's biographer, Edythe Haber, these  are priceless anecdotes and beautiful portraits of friends and  acquaintances lost forever.\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This new translation…. of [Teffi’s] autobiographical work is a solid reintroduction to her charmingly Chekhovian voice… it is that juxtaposition of the frightful and the comical that brings Teffi’s work to its perfection….Readers who enjoy the acerbic and ironic tone of David Sedaris and the humane observations of Anton Chekhov should find themselves in familiar company with this work.” —\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A carefully constructed, imaginative, and richly poetic narrative.” —Maria Bloshteyn, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The memoir [\u003ci\u003eMemories\u003c\/i\u003e] would be fascinating under any circumstances, but it has special poignancy now, when millions of Ukrainians have been displaced by a conflict that is half tragedy and half farce.”—Sophie Pinkham, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“With an unflinching eye for detail, whether noting the comedy of a fellow refugee’s turn of phrase or the torture enacted on his prisoners by a sadistic colonel, Teffi paints a portrait of a unique historical moment that also resonates with contemporary horrors.” —Lucy Scholes, \u003ci\u003eBBC\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I   never imagined such a memoir could be possible, especially about   the   Russian Civil War. Teffi wears her wisdom lightly, observing farce    and  foible amid the looming tragedy, in this enthralling   book\"   —Antony Beevor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Teffi demonstrates a profound sympathy for the  ordinary people among  whom she counts herself, swept along by  cataclysmic events. While she  sympathises with those who cannot help  themselves, she is not afraid to  look into the depths of what human  beings can do to one another and  what  happens when civilisation breaks  down.\" —Virginia Rounding, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"The  book is  expertly and collectively translated by Robert Chandler,  Elizabeth  Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson and Irina Steinberg. It reads  extremely  easily and well in English and is furnished with an  introduction,  translators' afterword and copious notes to explain  references and  allusions now lost to time.\" —William Boyd, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eMemories\u003c\/i\u003e is an astonishing work that, like Sholokhov’s \u003ci\u003eQuiet Flows the Don\u003c\/i\u003e,   and for many of the same reasons, deserves to be turned into a film.  It  is both a thriller and an unforgettably personal account of one of  the  worst periods in Russian history.\" —Catherine Brown, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[An]   astonishingly vivid memoir...Wittily, wryly, wistfully, but never   self-indulgently, Teffi tells the story of her escape from Moscow to   Kiev to Odessa and onto a dodgy boat to cross the Black Sea as the   country she loves is turned upside down in the aftermath of the   Bolshevik revolution.\" —Ysenda Maxtone Graham, \u003ci\u003eCountry Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A  vividly idiosyncratic personal account of   the disintegration - moral,  political, strategic - of Tsarist Russia   after the Revolution, as  alive to the farcical and the ridiculous as it   is to the tragic; a bit  like what Chekhov might have written if he had   lived to experience  it.\" —Michael Frayn\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Teffi is a courageous companion for anyone’s life.” —Erica Wagner, \u003ci\u003eThe New Statesman\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Speaking  of brilliant writers, here’s something from one of the 20th  century’s  best....In this, remarkably the first English translation of  her trek  across a chaotic post-revolution Russia, [Teffi] sparkles with  her  usual wit and humanity, her Gogol-like love of the absurd matching  her  Chekhovian ear for dialogue…she always finds the funny but never  loses  sight of the sadness. Awesome.\" —Jane Graham, \u003ci\u003eThe Big Issue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eTeffi \u003c\/b\u003e(1872–1952) was the pen name of Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in St. Petersburg into a distinguished family that treasured literature. She and her three sisters all became writers. Teffi wrote in a variety of styles and genres: political feuilletons published in a Bolshevik newspaper during her brief period of radical fervor after the 1905 Revolution; Symbolist poems that she declaimed or sang in Petersburg literary salons; popular one-act plays, mostly humorous or satirical—one was entitled \u003ci\u003eThe Woman Question\u003c\/i\u003e; and a novel titled simply \u003ci\u003eAdventure Novel\u003c\/i\u003e. Her finest works are her short stories and \u003ci\u003eMemories\u003c\/i\u003e, a witty, tragic, and deeply perceptive account of her last journey across Russia and what is now Ukraine, before going by boat to Istanbul in the summer of 1919. Teffi was widely read; her admirers included not only such writers as Bunin, Bulgakov, and Zoshchenko, but also both Lenin and the last tsar. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, candies and perfumes were named after her; after the Revolution, her stories were published and her plays performed throughout the Russian diaspora. She died in Paris.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Chandler\u003c\/b\u003e’s translations from Russian include Alexander Pushkin’s \u003ci\u003eThe Captain’s Daughter\u003c\/i\u003e (an NYRB classic); Nikolay Leskov’s \u003ci\u003eLady Macbeth of Mtsensk\u003c\/i\u003e; Vasily Grossman’s \u003ci\u003eAn Armenian Sketchbook\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEverything Flows\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLife and Fate\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Road\u003c\/i\u003e (all NYRB classics); and Hamid Ismailov’s Central Asian novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Railway\u003c\/i\u003e. His co-translations of Andrey Platonov have won prizes both in the UK and in the US. He is the editor and main translator of \u003ci\u003eRussian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRussian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov\u003c\/i\u003e. Together with Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski he has co-edited \u003ci\u003eThe Penguin Book of Russian Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e. He has also translated selections of Sappho and Apollinaire. As well as running regular translation workshops in London and teaching the annual Translate in the City literary translation course, he works as a mentor for the British Centre for Literary Translation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eElizabeth Chandler\u003c\/b\u003e is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler, of Pushkin’s \u003ci\u003eThe Captain’s Daughter\u003c\/i\u003e and of several titles by Andrey Platonov and Vasily Grossman.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnne Marie Jackson\u003c\/b\u003e has lived for extended periods in Russia and Moldova. She is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler and Rose France, of \u003ci\u003eTolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi \u003c\/i\u003e(available as an NYRB classic). Her previous translations include works by Alexei Nikitin, Maxim Osipov, and Olga Slavnikova. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eIrina Steinberg\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Moscow in 1983. She emigrated to England with her family at the age of eight and now lives primarily in London. She has a BA in English language and literature from University College London, as well as postgraduate qualifications in law. She started pursuing her interest in translation professionally in her late twenties and was a co-translator of Teffi’s \u003ci\u003eSubtly Worded and Other Stories \u003c\/i\u003e(2014).\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEdythe Haber\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor Emerita of Russian at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eMikhail Bulgakov: The Early Years\u003c\/i\u003e (1998) and of many articles on Russian literature, particularly on Bulgakov, Teffi, and Vladimir Nabokov. She is presently completing a critical biography of Teffi.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303923044581,"sku":"NP9781590179512","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590179512.jpg?v=1767732545","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/memories-isbn-9781590179512","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}