Isaac Babel's Selected Writings

by Isaac Babel, Peter Constantine (Translator), Gregory Freidin (Editor)

This Norton Critical Edition is based on Peter Constantine’s incomparable translations, which are introduced and annotated by the renowned Babel scholar Gregory Freidin. Isaac Babel’s work has left an indelible mark on modern literature. The scope of this Norton Critical Edition surpasses that of any other Babel paperback edition and includes his fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, plays, and political writings together with the contextual and critical materials necessary for in-depth study.

Background materials include “Selected Letters of Isaac Babel to His Sister and Mother, 1926-1939,” a rich collection of letters–sixty-eight in all, as well as “Isaac Babel Through the Eyes of His Contemporaries,” reminiscences by the contemporaries who knew Babel best, including Maxim Gorky, Tamara Ivanova (Kashirina), M. N. Berkov, and Dmitry Furmanov, among others.

“Criticism” reprints four major assessments of Babel’s legacy by Viktor Shklovsky, Lionel Trilling, Efraim Sicher, and Gregory Freidin.

A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

520 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel (Russian: Исаак Эммануилович Бабель; 1894 - 1940) was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of my Dovecote and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature. Babel has also been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry."

Loyal to, but not uncritical of, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Isaak Babel fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge due to his longterm affair with the wife of NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov. Babel was arrested by the NKVD at Peredelkino on the night of May 15, 1939. After "confessing", under torture, to being a Trotskyist terrorist and foreign spy, Babel was shot on January 27, 1940. The arrest and execution of Isaak Babel has been labeled a catastrophe for the world of literature.

Reviews

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read several short stories. I think you really have to get into Babel and analize the meaning in his work. At this point, I really don’t get him.