Thursday, October 15, 2015

Ten Russian novels to read before you die

Andrew D. Kaufman is Russian literature scholar at the University of Virginia and the author of Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times. One title on his list of ten Russian novels to read before you die, as shared at The Daily Beast:
The Funeral Party (2002) by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

This English-language debut of one of contemporary Russia’s most important novelists describes the bizarre and touching interactions among a colorful cast of Russian émigrés living in New York who attend the deathbed of Alik, a failed, but well-liked painter. At once quirky and trenchant, The Funeral Party explores two of the biggest “accursed questions” of Russian literature—How to live? How to die?—as they play out in a tiny, muggy Manhattan apartment in the early ’90s.
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue