Less Than One: Selected Essays

by Joseph Brodsky

This collection of essays thrusts Brodsky--heretofore known more for his poetry and translations--into the forefront of the "Third Wave" of Russian emigre writers. His insights into the works of Dostoyevsky, Mandelstam, Platonov, as well as non-Russian poets Auden, Cavafy and Montale are brilliant. While the Western popularity of many other Third Wavers has been stunted by their inability to write in English, Brodsky consumed the language to attain a "closer proximity" to poets such as Auden. The book, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, opens and closes with revealing autobiographical essay.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Russia, Poetry, Literature, Russian Literature, Literary Criticism

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Joseph Brodsky (Russian: Иосиф Бродский) was a Russian-American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad in 1940, Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. He taught thereafter at several universities, including Yale, Columbia, and Mount Holyoke. Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity." A journalist asked him: "You are an American citizen who is receiving the Prize for Russian-language poetry. Who are you, an American or a Russian?" Brodsky replied: "I'm Jewish; a Russian poet, an English essayist – and, of course, an American citizen." He was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991.

Reviews

[Laura Walin]

Kävin kesällä esseenkirjoituskursin, ja kun essee ei oikein lajityyppinä mnulle avautunut, kurssin opettaja Torsti Lehtinen suositteli mm. Brodskya. Ja kyllä olikin hieno kirja! Tarkkanäköisissä kirjoituksissaan Brodsky pureutuu venäläiseen mentaliteettiin, kieleen ja mielenmaisemaan sellaisella intensiteetillä, etten meinannut malttaa kirjaa käsistäni laskea. Lisäksi tunsin sivistyneeni suunnattomasti kirjan luettuani, sillä opin niin paljon. Kunpa itselläkin olisi jostain asiasta moinen ajatuksen kirkkaus, jonka osaisi vielä paperille muiden luettavaksi laittaa.