Books in the The Margellos World Republic of Letters series

Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, “was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions.” In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy’s unusual style—she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous translations have departed from Tolstoy’s original, “correcting” supposed mistakes and infelicities. But Schwartz uses repetition where Tolstoy does, wields a judicious cliché when he does, and strips down descriptive passages as he does, re-creating his style in English with imagination and skill.   Tolstoy’s romantic Anna, long-suffering Karenin, dashing Vronsky, and dozens of their family members, friends, and neighbors are among the most vivid characters in world literature. In the thought-provoking Introduction to this volume, Gary Saul Morson provides unusual insights into these characters, exploring what they reveal about Tolstoy’s radical conclusions on romantic love, intellectual dishonesty, the nature of happiness, the course of true evil, and more. For readers at every stage—from students first encountering Anna to literary professionals revisiting the novel—this volume will stand as the English reader’s clear first choice.

A major new collection of stories by one of the most exciting and creative voices in contemporary Chinese literature

A collection of the finest stories from the Irish author of The Dirty Dust, published fifty years after his death

Sonallah Ibrahim's 2000 masterpiece offers readers a view of twentieth-century world events through the diary pages of his titular character.

A searing novel that excavates the human collateral damage wrought by the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine

An authoritative new collection by one of China's most lauded poets

A career retrospective of poetry and prose works by one of the under-recognized giants of French literature

A riveting English translation the Irish classic tale of heartache, death, and loneliness by the beloved author of The Dirty Dust

"Originally published as Libret de famille. A Editions GALLIMARD, Paris, 1977."--Title page verso.

Acclaimed and celebrated in the Arab world for its vivid portrait of Iraq, this heartbreaking novel confronts the war-torn nation's horrifying recent history

Now available in paperback, the original English-language translation of O Cadhain's raucous masterpiece

In this essential trilogy of novellas by the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, French author Patrick Modiano reaches back in time, opening the corridors of memory and exploring the mysteries to be encountered there. Each novella in the volume--Afterimage, Suspended Sentences, and Flowers of Ruin-represents a sterling example of the author's originality and appeal, while Mark Polizzotti's superb English-language translations capture not only Modiano's distinctive narrative voice but also the matchless grace and spare beauty of his prose.Although originally published separately, Modiano's three novellas form a single, compelling whole, haunted by the same gauzy sense of place and characters. Modiano draws on his own experiences, blended with the real or invented stories of others, to present a dreamlike autobiography that is also the biography of a place. Orphaned children, mysterious parents, forgotten friends, enigmatic strangers-each appears in this three-part love song to a Paris that no longer exists.Shadowed by the dark period of the Nazi Occupation, these novellas reveal Modiano's fascination with the lost, obscure, or mysterious: a young person's confusion over adult behavior; the repercussions of a chance encounter; the search for a missing father; the aftershock of a fatal affair. To read Modiano's trilogy is to enter his world of uncertainties and the almost accidental way in which people find their fates.

A brilliant new translation of Ó Cadhain's modern Irish literature masterpiece, meant to spark debate and comparison with Alan Titley's Dirty Dust, now with bonus materials on its history, reception, interpretations, adaptations, and more "Gloriously attuned to the energy, copiousness, invective and ribaldry of the original Cre na Cille."--Patricia Craig, Times Literary Supplement "Corrosively satirical and darkly comic. . . . A tour de force of a gabfest."--Mark Harman, Los Angeles Review of Books In critical opinion and popular polls, Máirtín Ó Cadhain's Graveyard Clay is invariably ranked the most important prose work in modern Irish. This bold new translation of his radically original Cré na Cille is the shared project of two fluent speakers of the Irish of Ó Cadhain's native region, Liam Mac Con Iomaire and Tim Robinson. They have achieved a lofty goal: to convey Ó Cadhain's meaning accurately and to meet his towering literary standards. Graveyard Clay is a novel of black humor, reminiscent of the work of Synge and Beckett. The story unfolds entirely in dialogue as the newly dead arrive in the graveyard, bringing news of recent local happenings to those already confined in their coffins. Avalanches of gossip, backbiting, flirting, feuds, and scandal-mongering ensue, while the absurdity of human nature becomes ever clearer. This edition of Ó Cadhain's masterpiece is enriched with footnotes, bibliography, publication and reception history, and other materials that invite further study and deeper enjoyment of his most engaging and challenging work.

The newest best-seller by Patrick Modiano is a beautiful tapestry that brings together memory, esoteric encounters, and fragmented sensations

"Originally published as Corps daesirable. Copyright AZulma, 2015" -- Title page verso.

A unique work of fiction from the troubled streets of Ukraine, giving invaluable testimony to the new history unfolding in the nation's post-independence years

From beloved storyteller and Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, a masterful and gripping crime novel set in picturesque Nice on the French Riviera

A writer for whom the journey has always mattered reinvents the very form itself in this inviting collection of in-the-moment impressions of his journeys