Yevgeny Onegin
By (Author) Alexander Pushkin
Translated by Anthony Briggs
Pushkin Press
Pushkin Press
24th February 2016
United Kingdom
Paperback
256
Width 120mm, Height 165mm
The aristocratic Yevgeny Onegin has come into his inheritance, leaving the glamour of St Petersburg's social life behind to take up residence at his uncle's country estate. Master of the nonchalant bow, and proof of the fact that we shine despite our lack of education, the aristocratic Onegin is the very model of a social butterfly - a fickle dandy, liked by all for his wit and easy ways. When the shy and passionate Tatyana falls in love with him, Onegin condescendingly rejects her, and instead carelessly diverts himself by flirting with her sister, Olga - with terrible consequences.
What makes Onegin great is its timeless insight into the human heart: its vanities, its follies, its disasters... the book itself is a thing of beauty Nick Lezard, Guardian Now that the BBC's adaptation of War and Peace is over, fill the void with another gem of Russian literature Canary Wharf magazine Anthony Briggs's translations have an incomparable modernity, lightness of touch and joy in language Euro Lit Network
Alexander Pushkin was born in 1799. He published his first poem when he was fifteen, and in 1820 his first long poem - Ruslan and Lyudmila - made him famous. His work, including the novel-in-verse Yevgeny Onegin, the poem 'The Bronze Horseman', the play Boris Godunov and the short story The Queen of Spades, has secured his place as one of the greatest writers, in any language, ever to have lived. He died aged just 37, having been wounded in a duel - Pushkin's 29th - by his brother-in-law.Anthony Briggs is one of the world's leading authorities on the work of Pushkin, and an acclaimed translator from the Russian, whose best-known translations include The Queen of Spades and Selected Works published by Pushkin Press, and Tolstoy's War and Peace, The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Resurrection.