Petersburg

“The most important, most influential and most perfectly realized Russian novel written in the 20th century.” -The New York Times Book Review

Set in 1905 in St. Petersburg, a city in the throes of sociopolitical conflict, the novel follows university student Nikolai Apollonovich Ableukhov, who has gotten entangled with a revolutionary terrorist organization with plans to assassinate a government official—Nikolai’s own father, Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov. With a sprawling cast of characters, set against a nightmarish city, it is all at once a historical, political, philosophical, and darkly comedic novel.

Andrei Bely’s novel Petersburg is considered one of the four greatest prose masterpieces of the twentieth century. In this edition of the bestselling translation, the reader will have access to the translators’ detailed commentary, which provides the necessary historical and literary context for understanding the novel, as well as a foreword by Olga Matich, acclaimed scholar of Russian literature.

“A translation that captures Bely’s idiosyncratic language and the rhythm of his prose, and, without doing violence to English, conveys not only the literal meaning of the Russian but also its echoes and implications.” -The New York Review of Books

“All people who go in for the B’s—Breckett, Brecht, Buñuel—better get hold of Bely. He came first, and he’s still the best.” -Washington Post Book World