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Yury Olesha

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Yury Olesha


Born
in Elizavetgrad, Ukraine
March 03, 1899

Died
May 10, 1960

Genre
Classics, Fiction & Non Fiction


Yury Karlovich Olesha (Russian/Ukraine: Юрий Олеша or Юрий Карлович Олеша), Soviet author of fiction, plays and satires best known for his 1927 novel Envy (Russian: Зависть). He is considered one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th century, one of the few to have succeeded in writing works of lasting artistic value despite the stifling censorship of the era. His works are delicate balancing-acts that superficially send pro-Communist messages but reveal far greater subtlety and richness upon a deeper reading. Sometimes, he is grouped with his friends Ilf and Petrov, Isaac Babel, and Sigismund Krzhizhanovsky into the Odessa School of Writers.
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Combine Editions

Average rating: 3.85 · 7,614 ratings · 414 reviews · 52 distinct works • Similar authors
Envy
by
3.69 avg rating — 3,979 ratings — published 1927 — 15 editions
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The Three Fat Men
4.01 avg rating — 3,006 ratings — published 1928 — 82 editions
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No Day without a Line: From...
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4.13 avg rating — 87 ratings — published 1981 — 16 editions
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Envy, and Other Works
3.90 avg rating — 79 ratings — published 1981 — 5 editions
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Зависть. Три Толстяка. Восп...
4.62 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 2012
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Книга прощания (Мой 20 век)
4.71 avg rating — 17 ratings — 5 editions
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Зависть. Ни дня без строчки
4.23 avg rating — 13 ratings
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Complete Short Stories and ...
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really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 1979
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Liompa
4.20 avg rating — 10 ratings
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Избранное
4.75 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1979 — 5 editions
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More books by Yury Olesha…
Quotes by Yury Olesha  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“Things don't like me. Furniture purposely sticks out its leg for me. A polished corner once literally bit me. My blanket and I have always had a complicated relationship.”
― Yuri Olesha
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“Writers are engineers of human souls.”
― Yury Olesha
tags: literature, soul, soviet-union, stalin, writers, writing, yuri-olesha
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“…you know, sometimes an electric lightbulb goes out all of a sudden. Fizzles, you say. And this burned-out bulb, if you shake it, it flashes again and it’ll burn a little longer. Inside the bulb it’s a disaster. The wolfram filaments are breaking up, and when the fragments touch, life returns to the bulb. A brief, unnatural, undeniably doomed life—a fever, a too-bright incandescence, a flash. The comes the darkness, life never returns, and in the darkness the dead, incinerated filaments are just going to rattle around. Are you following me? But the brief flash is magnificent!

“I want to shake…

“I want to shake the heart of a fizzled era. The lightbulb of the heart, so that the broken pieces touch…

“…and produce a beautiful, momentary flash…”
― Yuri Olesha, Envy
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