Isaac Babel's Selected Writings (Norton Critical Edition)

"One of the most important writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Babel has left an indelible mark on modern literature. In this Norton Critical Edition, a comprehensive selection of his writings, based on Peter Constantine's award-winning translation, is introduced and annotated by the renowned Babel scholar Gregory Freidin. Unique in scope, this Norton Critical Edition includes the essential Babel-early fiction, Red Cavalry along with the Diary, The Tales of Odessa, autobiographical childhood stories, journalism, his two known plays - together with the contextual and critical materials necessary for in-depth study." "To establish the context, the editor includes "Selected Letters of Isaac Babel, 1926-1939" to his family, followed by "Isaac Babel Through the Eyes of His Contemporaries," a collection of reminiscences, private diary entries, critical reactions, and other documents presenting Babel as he was seen by those who knew him, among them Maxim Gorky, Tamara Ivanova (Kashirina), M. N. Berkov, Iosif Stalin, Vyacheslav Polonsky, Clara Malraux, Kornei Chukovsky, Erwin Sinko, Antonina Pirozhkova, Dmitry Furmanov, and others. Many of these materials appear in English for the first time." ""Criticism" brings together five major assessments of Babel's legacy, by Viktor Shklovsky, Semyon Budyonny, Lionel Trilling, Efraim Sicher, and Gregory Freidin." "A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography complete this Norton Critical Edition."--BOOK JACKET.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.