Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea

Author(s): Teffi

History

The writer and satirist Teffi was a literary sensation in Russia until war and revolution forced her to leave her country for ever. Memories is her blackly funny and heartbreaking account of her final, frantic journey into exile across Russia-travelling by cart, freight train and rickety steamer-and the 'ordinary and unheroic' people she encounters. From refugees setting up camp on a dockside to a singer desperately buying a few 'last scraps' of fabric to make a dress, all are caught up in the whirlwind; all are immortalized by Teffi's penetrating gaze. Fusing exuberant wit and bitter horror, this is an extraordinary portrayal of what it means to say goodbye, with haunting relevance in today's new age of diaspora. Published in English for the first time, it confirms the rediscovery of Teffi as one of the most humane, perceptive observers of her time, and an essential writer for ours.


Product Information

Teffi can write in more registers than you might think, and is capable of being heartbreaking as well as very funny. I wish she were still alive, and I could have met her... I can't recommend her strongly enough -- Nicholas Lezard Guardian Her range is as broad as her prose is buoyant New Statesman A gifted satirist and social observer -- Eileen Battersby Irish Times Teffi's brilliance at capturing the dark comedy of her milieu should no longer prevent her from being recognized as an important European writer TLS Like Nabokov, Platonov, and many other great Russian prose writers, Teffi was a poet who turned to prose but continued to write with a poet's sensitivity to tone and rhythm. Like Chekhov, she fuses wit, tragedy, and a remarkable capacity for observation; there are few human weaknesses she did not relate to with compassion and understanding -- Robert Chandler New Yorker Teffi was not only a great wit and an impeccable stylist, but one of the twentieth century's most perceptive and clear-headed observers PEN Atlas I never imagined such a memoir could be possible, especially about the Russian Civil War. Teffi wears her wisdom lightly, observing farce and foible amid the looming tragedy, in this enthralling book -- Antony Beevor A vividly idiosyncratic personal account of the disintegration - moral, political, strategic - of Tsarist Russia after the Revolution, as alive to the farcical and the ridiculous as it is to the tragic; a bit like what Chekhov might have written if he had lived to experience it -- Michael Frayn There are shades of Chekhov in the elegant and enthralling prose of this Russian female emigre writer, whose once much-feted work is happily now being rediscovered Bookseller

Teffi (1872-1952) wrote poems, plays, stories, satires and feuilletons, and was renowned in Russia for her wit and powers of observation. Following her emigration in 1919 she settled in Paris, where she became a leading figure in the emigre literary scene. Now her genius has been rediscovered by a new generation of readers, and she once again enjoys huge acclaim in Russia and across the world. Her short-story collection Subtly Worded is also published by Pushkin Press, and the non-fiction collection Rasputin and Other Ironies will also be published in May 2016.

General Fields

  • : 9781782271697
  • : Pushkin Press
  • : Pushkin Press
  • : May 2016
  • : 216mm X 135mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : May 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Teffi
  • : Hardback
  • : 1606
  • : 891.78403
  • : 336