The theme of foolishness has long occupied an unusually prominent place in Russian culture, touching on key questions of national, spiritual, and intellectual identity. In literature, the figure of the fool – and the voice of the fool – has carried additional appeal as an enduring source of comic and stylistic innovation. Never has this appeal been stronger than in the past half-century, whether as a reaction to the «scientific atheism» and official culture of the late-socialist era, or as...

"Life and Sport in China" by Oliver George Ready offers a compelling exploration of the intricate relationship between culture and athletics in China. The book delves into how sports have evolved within the context of Chinese society, reflecting broader social changes and national identity. Ready's insightful analysis highlights the significance of traditional sports alongside the rise of modern athleticism, showcasing how these elements intertwine to shape the lives of individuals and com...

'A truly great translation . . . This English version really is better' - A. N. Wilson, The SpectatorTIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014This acclaimed new translation of Dostoyevsky's 'psychological record of a crime' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former ...

New Jerusalem Monastery, seventeenth-century Moscow. Patriarch Nikon has instructed an itinerant French dramatist to stage the New Testament and hasten the Second Coming. But this will be a strange form of theatre. The actors are untrained, illiterate Russian peasants, and nobody is allowed to play Christ. They are persecuted, arrested, displaced, and ultimately replaced by their own children. Yet the rehearsals continue... A stunning reflection on art, history, religion and national ident...

New Jerusalem Monastery, seventeenth-century Moscow. Patriarch Nikon has instructed an itinerant French dramatist to stage the New Testament and hasten the Second Coming. But this will be a strange form of theatre. The actors are untrained, illiterate Russian peasants, and nobody is allowed to play Christ. They are persecuted, arrested, displaced, and ultimately replaced by their own children. Yet the rehearsals continue... A stunning reflection on art, history, religion and national ident...

'Here is a novel with no parallel in contemporary literature, a novel where fantasy does constant battle with the insane intention of embracing all of history with a single story.' Paul Lequesne in Le Monde 'Sharov has assimilated, perhaps more than any of his contemporaries, the artistic and philosophical legacy of both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries of Russian literature. Like Dostoevsky, he is excessive not in order to deny, misrepresent, or flee reality but, rather, to capture ...

Fresh, stylish new translations of Gogol's greatest short stories collected in a beautiful edition 'One of the most profound, and influential, writers Russia has ever produced, he is probably also the funniest' Guardian 'The most morally complete writer: baffled, outraged, reverent, mock-didactic, mocking, all at once. He honours life by feeling no one way about it' GEORGE SAUNDERS No writer has captured the absurdity of the human condition as acutely as Nikolai Gogol. In a lively new tran...

Brought to you by Penguin.This Penguin Classic is performed by Don Warrington, known for his roles in Death in Paradise and The Five as well as his multiple Shakespearean performances. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Oliver Ready.'A truly great translation . . . This English version really is better' - A. N. Wilson, The SpectatorTIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE ...

The final novel by a titan of post-Soviet literature, this fantastical thriller about fakes and imposters in Russian history is both a rewrite of Greek myth and a spiritual sequel of sorts to The Brothers Karamazov.Vladimir Sharov was one of the most significant and daring novelists of the post-Soviet era, a historian by training whose fantastical fictions unflinchingly plumbed the dark depths of Russia’s past. At once a rewrite of Greek myth and a sequel ...

At the centre of Be as Children is an ailing Vladimir Lenin, infected not with syphilis, as some historians have claimed, but with Christian fervour. Regressing stroke by stroke to an infancy of his own, he renounces his faith in the proletariat and puts all his hope in the many children left homeless and orphaned by the Civil War. Only they will be loyal to the cause and only they can save it. Around this story Sharov weaves two other plots: a murderer who converts a Siberian people to Ch...

Late Soviet stagnation, Moscow. Alyosha a writer who suffers from fits accompanied by memory loss admits himself to a psychiatric institute for experimental treatment. Inspired by Ivan the Terrible’s “Memorial Book of the Disgraced” and his own spiritual crisis, Alyosha has been trying to record the memories of people in his life who “died before their time, leaving nothing behind except in my memory”. In hospital, however, he changes tack and decides to dedicate his Memorial Book to the m...

Seventeenth century Russia, New Jerusalem Monastery. The recently deposed Patriarch Nikon, whose reforms lead to a schism in the Orthodox church, employs a French dramatist to stage the New Testament and hasten the Second Coming of Christ. Jacques de Sertan’s troupe consists of untrained and illiterate peasants. The actors are divided into roles, whole families play different social or ethnic groups that lived in Jerusalem around the time of Christ. No one, however, is allowed to play the ...