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Книги издательства «Pushkin Press»
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Petersburg is a story of family dysfunction, parricide, political terror, conspiracy and murder, but it also points to apocalypse and redemption. The world of history — the revolution of 1905 — and the world of myth — in the figure of Saturn, who devours his children and in turn is devoured by them-are intertwined. Russia is torn apart by the conflict between revolutions and reaction, at the level of myth, these opposites are indistinguishable. The Ableukhovs, father and son, embody this conflict, but are scions of the same Mongol lineage. The city itself if the child of its autocratic founder, Peter the Great, who maintains his power over it through the agency of his statue, the Bronze Horseman. |
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Dino is a placid, unambitious man. Living in a small provincial town, his only passion is billiards — he spends his evenings in the local billiards parlor honing his technique. One day, however, his quiet life is interrupted — his wife falls pregnant. This sparks a series of events that shake Dino from his slumber, challenging him for the first time. Born in Florence in 1978, Pietro Grossi lives between Tuscany and Milan. His collection of short stories Fists was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and won the Campiello Europa Prize in 2010. |
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Truly gripping, these mini-masterpieces each contain the substance of a condensed full-length novel. Fantastic Night is the story of one transformative evening in the life of a rich and bored young man. He spends a day at the races and an evening in the seedy but thrilling company of the dregs of society. His experiences jolt him out of his languor and give him a newfound relish for life, which is then cut short by the Great War. Two of Zweig's most powerful works, The Invisible Collection and Buchmendel, explore lives led in the single-minded pursuit of art and literature against a backdrop of poverty and corruption. Letter from an Unknown Woman is a poignant and heartbreaking tale of the strength and madness of unrequited love, while in The Fowler Snared, it is the man whose passion remains unrequited. Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman is the story of a middle-aged English widow who travels to escape loneliness and boredom. One evening while enjoying the elegant atmosphere of the Monte Carlo Casino, she becomes mesmerized by the obsessive gambling of a young Polish aristocrat. This fateful encounter leads to passion, despair, and death, changing their lives forever. |
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Casanova, the Venetian who lived most of his life in exile from his beloved city and created his own myth — which in turn is a reflection of the nature of the city itself — is the subject of this masterly biographical essay by Stefan Zweig. As Zweig describes in this volume: Imaginative writers rarely have a biography, and men who have biographies are only in exceptional circumstances able to write them... Casanova is a splendid, almost unique exception. |
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While working for his uncle, Alexis Hartz is introduced to Laura who shares his scientific interests, and in particular his fascination for crystals. To his amazement Laura has discovered a way to enter this alluring world and together they travel the vast and glittering landscape. But it cannot last forever. |
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The acclaimed aviator and adventurer wrote Letter to a Hostage while waiting in neutral Portugal for a passage to the United States, having just escaped from the terrors of war-torn France. Saint-Exupery's observations on the aimless existence of his fellow exiles in a Lisbon filled with parties, gambling and spies leads him to examine the nature of existence itself. The particularity of this moment, as the world seemed to be coming to an end, makes for a searing and timeless evocation of the nature of humanity. |
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The Queen of Spades is one of the most famous tales in Russian literature, and inspired the eponymous opera by Tchaikovsky; in The Stationmaster, from The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin, Pushkin reworks the parable of the Prodigal Son; Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters is one of Pushkin's bawdier early poems; and the narrative poem The Bronze Horseman, inspired by a St Petersburg statue of Peter the Great, is one of Pushkin's best-known and most influential works. The volume also includes a small selection of Pushkin's best lyric poetry. |
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Coco Chanel invited Paul Morand to visit her in St Moritz at the end of the Second World War when he was given the opportunity to write her memoirs; his notes of their conversations were put away in a drawer and only came to light one year after Chanel's death. Through Morand's transcription of their conversations, Chanel tells us about her friendship with Misia Sert, the men in her life — Boy Capel, the Duke of Westminster, artists such as Diaghilev, her philosophy of fashion and the story behind the legendary Number 5 perfume... The memories of Chanel told in her own words provide vivid sketches and portray the strength of Coco's character, leaving us with an extraordinary insight into Chanel the woman and the woman who created Chanel. |
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A collection of funny and fantastical short stories, Marcel Aymé's The Man Who Walked through Walls (Le Passe-muraille), is a classic of French literature, loved by children and adults alike. Monsieur Dutilleul has always been able to walk through walls but has never bothered using his gift, given the general availability of doors. One day, however, his bullying boss drives him to desperate measures, and he develops a taste for intramural travel... The titular tale sets the tone for this collection of ten stories from the great French humourist, novelist and children's writer Marcel Aymé. Elements of science-fiction and fantasy are present throughout this volume, written under Nazi occupation during the Second World War, which pokes fun at the occupiers and occupied alike. Set in Paris's Montmartre district, these stories have spawned a number of films, including Jean Boyer's 1951 classic Garou Garou, le passe-muraille and Yvan Attal's Les Sabines starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, as well as a musical, Amour, which won the Prix Molière in France before an English version conquered Broadway. Today in Montmartre a sculpture of The Man Who Walked through Walls, created by the legendary actor Jean Marais, can be found in the Place Marcel Aymé, paying tribute to the great author and his work. |
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Gaito Gazdanov, the son of a forester, joined Baron Wrangel's White Army aged just sixteen and fought in the Russian Civil War. Exiled in Paris from 1920 onwards, he took on what jobs he could and during periods of unemployment slept on park benches or in the Métro. A job driving taxis at night eventually allowed him to attend lectures at the Sorbonne and write during the day; he soon became part of the literary scene, and was greatly acclaimed by Maxim Gorky, among others. He died in Munich in 1971. |
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Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, Ryu Murakami is the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, a novel about a group of young people drowned in sex and drugs, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. His novels include Coin Locker Babies, Sixty-Nine, Popular Hits of the Showa Era, Audition, In the Miso Soup and From the Fatherland, with Love. Murakami is also a screenwriter and a director; his films include Tokyo Decadence, Audition and Because of You. |
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In a small, inconsequential city in Japan, all that matters to 17-year-old Kensuke Yazaki and his friends is girls, rock music and, to a much lesser extent, school. Told at high speed and with irresistible humour by Kensuke himself, this is the story of their 1969, as they engage in heated conversations about Marxism, Rimbaud, Godard, the Beatles and the Stones, set up a barricade in their school, organise a rock festival and map out a highly successful strategy in girl-winning. This is a young Japan entirely turned towards the West, pervaded by Western music, where the girls have nicknames pulled from famous British films, but still locked in a fight with the rigid post-war conservatism of the older generation. |
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Stefan's Zweig' Beware of Pity (Ungeduld des Herzens) is an almost unbearably tense and powerful tale of unrequited love and the danger of pity. The famous novel is published by Pushkin Press, with a cover designed by David Pearson and Clare Skeats, as part of a new series of Zweig paperbacks. Translated by the award-winning Anthea Bell. In 1913 a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love, realised against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 'Beware of Pity is the most exciting book I have ever read...a feverish, fascinating novel' — Anthony Beevor, Sunday Telegraph The novel I'll really remember reading this year is Stefan Zweig's frighteningly gripping Beware of Pity, first published in 1939 ... and part of the ongoing, valiant reprinting by Pushkin Press of Zweig's collected oeuvre; an intoxicating, morally shaking read about human responsibilities and a real reminder of what fiction can do best' — Ali Smith, TLS Book of the Year 2008 'An unremittingly tense parable about emotional blackmail, this is a book which turns every reader into a fanatic' — Julie Kavanagh, Intelligent Life (The Economist) Translated from the German by Anthea Bell, Stefan Zweig's Beware of Pity is published by Pushkin Press. Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press. |
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A bourgeois housewife's affair is discovered, and a blackmailer turns her comfortable life into a nightmare of apprehension. Finding her comfortable bourgeois existence as wife and mother tedious after eight years of marriage, Irene Wagner brings a little excitement into it by starting an affair with a rising young pianist. Her lover's former mistress begins blackmailing her, threatening to give her secret away to her husband, meanwhile her husband seems to offer her numerous opportunities to confess and be forgiven. Irene is soon in the grip of agonizing fear. Written in the spring of 1913, and first published in 1920, this novella is one of Stefan Zweig's most powerful studies of a woman's mind and emotions. 'Charts every fluctuation of its heroine's inner turmoil and ends with an ingenious twist.' — Julie Kavanagh, The Economist Intelligent Life 'Brilliant, unusual and haunting enough to ensure that Stefan Zweig's time of oblivion is over for good. It's good to have him back.' — Salman Rushdie, The New York Times 'Zweig belongs with those masters of the novella — Maupassant, Turgenev, Chekhov — of whom he was in awe. He was formidably well read, but in his fiction he is as much at ease with the unlettered as the learned... Stefan Zweig cherished the everyday imperfections and frustrated aspirations of the men and women he analysed with such affection and understanding.' — Paul Bailey, Times Literary Supplement '[During his lifetime] arguably the most widely read and translated serious author in the world.' John Fowles Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) was born in Vienna, into a wealthy Austrian-Jewish family. He studied in Berlin and Vienna and was first known as a poet and translator, then as a biographer. Zweig travelled widely, living in Salzburg between the wars, and was an international bestseller with a string of hugely popular novellas including Letter from an Unknown Woman, Amok and Fear. In 1934, with the rise of Nazism, he moved to London, where he wrote his only novel Beware of Pity. He later moved on to Bath, taking British citizenship after the outbreak of the Second World War. With the fall of France in 1940 Zweig left Britain for New York, before settling in Brazil, where in 1942 he and his wife were found dead in an apparent double suicide. Much of his work is available from Pushkin Press. |
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From the Fatherland, with Love is set in an alternative, dystopian present in which the dollar has collapsed and Japan's economy has fallen along with it. The North Korean government, sensing an opportunity, sends a fleet of 'rebels' in the first land invasion that Japan has ever faced. Japan can't cope with the surprise onslaught of 'Operation From the Fatherland, with Love'. But the terrorist Ishihara and his band of renegade youths — once dedicated to upsetting the Japanese government-turn their deadly attention to the North Korean threat. They will not allow Fukuoka to fall without a fight. Epic in scale, From the Fatherland, with Love is laced throughout with Murakami's characteristically savage violence. It's both a satisfying thriller and a completely mad, over-the-top novel like few others. |
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Paul Morand's last book, one of the most appealing of his oeuvre, brings together around the figure of Chanel, portraits of Misia Sert, Erik Satie, Serge Lifar, Georges Auric, Raymond Radiguet, Jean Cocteau, Picasso and Churchill, among others. Based on a series of intimate conversations between Morand and Coco Chanel, written in the great storyteller's marvellous prose, this book artfully sketches the character of the elusive, mysterious and charming creature who inspired Malraux to say: Chanel, De Gaulle and Picasso are the greatest figures of our times. Hailed on its publication in 1976 as a great celebration of a book, a finely cut, sparkling gem, The Allure of Chanel attracted the attention of Karl Lagerfeld, who embellished it with seventy-three drawings, sketched for this special illustrated edition. |
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