{"product_id":"white-walls-isbn-9781590171974","title":"White Walls","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eA New York Review Books Original\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Tolstaya carves indelible people who roam the imagination long after the book is put down.” –\u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTatyana Tolstaya’s short stories—with their unpredictable fairy-tale plots, appealingly eccentric characters, and stylistic abundance and flair—established her in the 1980s as one of modern Russia’s finest writers. Since then her work has been translated throughout the world. Edna O’Brien has called Tolstaya “an enchantress.” Anita Desai has spoken of her work’s “richness and ardent life.” Mixing heartbreak and humor, dizzying flights of fantasy and plunging descents to earth, Tolstaya is the natural successor in a great Russian literary lineage that includes Gogol, Yuri Olesha, Bulgakov, and Nabokov.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhite Walls\u003c\/i\u003e is the most comprehensive collection of Tolstaya’s short fiction to be published in English so far. It presents the contents of her two previous collections, \u003ci\u003eOn the Golden Porch\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSleepwalker in a Fog\u003c\/i\u003e, along with several previously uncollected stories. Tolstaya writes of lonely children and lost love, of philosophers of the absurd and poets working as janitors, of angels and halfwits. She shows how the extraordinary will suddenly erupt in the midst of ordinary life, as she explores the human condition with a matchless combination of unbound imagination and unapologetic sympathy.\u003cp\u003e\"Tolstaya's voice is utterly her own, incorporating comic exaggeration, sly satire,  bursts of lyricism and whimsy to intoxicating effect.\" —\u003ci\u003eNational Post\u003c\/i\u003e (Canada)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Tolstaya demonstrates an impressive range in these 23 stories...[that encompass]  political satire, flights of surrealism and realistic urban and domestic dramas,  nearly all set in the Soviet era...Children, old folks and the struggling in-betweens–Tolstaya  sees into all their hearts. Remarkable\" —\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eTolstaya has a wholly distinctive voice, a quirky yet lyrical voice that blurs the line between poetry and prose, visionary magic and plain, old-fashioned description....She is an enormously gifted writer. \u003cbr\u003e—Michiko Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e    \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Tolstaya offsets layers of exquisitely  constructed language with the colloquial and the idiomatic and in a similar way layers  the commonplace with the supernatural. The creation of a brilliant jumble of motley  metaphors is her gift – not plot, trajectory, or the arc of a story, but the plunge  into the middle of dazzling verbiage, her bright universe.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Phoenix\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePraise for Tolstaya:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Tolstaya is \"considered by many critics and writers to be  the foremost writer of her generation, a miniaturist whose stories combine the linguistic  stardust of Vladimir Nabokov and the emotional wisdom of Anton Chekhov.\" —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington  Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“If you can imagine a Magic Realist Chekhov, you’re getting close, but her voice is all her own.” —Alan Bilton,\u003ci\u003e Nation.Cymru\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBorn in Leningrad, \u003cb\u003eTatyana Tolstaya\u003c\/b\u003e comes from an old Russian family that includes the writers Leo and  Alexei Tolstoy. She studied at Leningrad State University and then moved  to Moscow, where she continues to live. She is also the author of  Pushkin’s Children: Writings on Russia and Russians.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJamey Gambrell\u003c\/b\u003e is a writer on Russian art and culture. Her translations include  Marina Tsvetaeva's \u003ci\u003eEarthly Signs: Moscow Diaries 1917—1922 \u003c\/i\u003eand Vladimir Sorokin's  \u003ci\u003eIce\u003c\/i\u003e, published by NYRB Classics on December 2006. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAntonina W. Bouis's\u003c\/b\u003e most recent translation from the Russian is Edvard Radzinsky's  \u003ci\u003eAlexander II: The Last Great Tsar\u003c\/i\u003e. ","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299959623909,"sku":"NP9781590171974","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590171974.jpg?v=1767744137","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/white-walls-isbn-9781590171974","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}