Dark Avenues

Description: Considered one of the most influential authors of twentieth century Russian Literature, Ivan Bunin's "Dark Avenues" is the culmination of a life's work which unrelentingly questioned of the political doxa whilst taking his poetic mastery of language to dark new heights. Written between 1938 and 1944 and set in the context of a disintegrating Russian culture, this collection of short fiction centres around dark, erotic liaisons told with a rich, elegaic poetics which probes the artistic limits of depicting desire.A prolific writer and fierce political activist, Bunin became the first Russian to win the Nobel prize for Literature in 1933 and was highly influential on his contemporary Russian emigres, Checkov and Nabokov. The "Dark Avenues" is the zenith of his work and one of the most important Russian texts to come out of the twentieth century.

Review: "Bunin can perhaps be viewed as the sensual celebrant of White Russian decadence, but he has the lyrical power of Turgenev and understands human relations with striking percipience. Highly recommended." - RTE "I do not know any other writer whose external world is so closely tied to another, whose sensations are more exact and indispensable, and whose world is more genuine and also more unexpected." - Andre Gide "

Contents: Appendix contains the story Dark Avenues in the original Russian, as well as In Spring, in Judaea, A Place for the NightWorks included: Dark Avenues, The Caucasus, A Ballad, Styopa, Muza, A Late Hour, Rusya, A Beauty, The Simpleton, Antigone,An Emerald, The Visitor, Wolves, Calling Cards, Zoyka and Valeria, Tanya, In Paris, Galya Ganskaya, Heinrich, Natalie, Upona Long-Familiar Street, A Riverside Inn, 'The Godmother, The Beginning, The Oaklings, Miss Klara, Madrid, A Second Pot of Coffee, Iron Coat, A Cold Autumn, The Steamer Saratov, The Raven, The Camargue, One Hundred Rupees, Vengeance, The Swing, 'Pure Monday, The Chapel



Author Biography: Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953) was the first Russian writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. His last book of fiction Dark Avenues is arguably the most widely read 20th-century collection of short stories in Russia.