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'Full of lively stories ... leaves the reader with an awed respect
for the translator's task' Economist Would Hiroshima have been
bombed if Japanese contained a phrase meaning 'no comment'? Is it
alright for missionaries to replace the Bible's 'white as snow'
with 'white as fungus' in places where snow never falls? Who, or
what, is Kuzma's mother, and why was Nikita Khrushchev so
threateningly obsessed with her (or it)? The course of diplomacy
rarely runs smooth; without an invisible army of translators and
interpreters, it could hardly run at all. Join veteran translator
Anna Aslanyan to explore hidden histories of cunning and ambition,
heroism and incompetence. Meet the figures behind the notable
events of history, from the Great Game to Brexit, and discover just
how far a simple misunderstanding can go.
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Everything Flows (Paperback)
Vasily Grossman; Introduction by Robert Chandler; Translated by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, Anna Aslanyan
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R505
R418
Discovery Miles 4 180
Save R87 (17%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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A New York Review Books Original
"Everything Flows" is Vasily Grossman's final testament, written
after the Soviet authorities suppressed his masterpiece, Life and
Fate. The main story is simple: released after thirty years in the
Soviet camps, Ivan Grigoryevich must struggle to find a place for
himself in an unfamiliar world. But in a novel that seeks to take
in the whole tragedy of Soviet history, Ivan's story is only one
among many. Thus we also hear about Ivan's cousin, Nikolay, a
scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career,
and Pinegin, the informer who got Ivan sent to the camps. Then a
brilliant short play interrupts the narrative: a series of
informers steps forward, each making excuses for the inexcusable
things that he did--inexcusable and yet, the informers plead, in
Stalinist Russia understandable, almost unavoidable. And at the
core of the book, we find the story of Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan's
lover, who tells about her eager involvement as an activist in the
Terror famine of 1932-33, which led to the deaths of three to five
million Ukrainian peasants. Here "Everything Flows" attains an
unbearable lucidity comparable to the last cantos of Dante's
"Inferno."
Would Hiroshima have been bombed if Japanese contained a phrase
meaning 'no comment'? Is it alright for missionaries to replace the
Bible's 'white as snow' with 'white as fungus' in places where snow
never falls? Who, or what, is Kuzma's mother, and why was Nikita
Khrushchev so threateningly obsessed with her (or it)? The course
of diplomacy rarely runs smooth; without an invisible army of
translators and interpreters, it's hard to see how it could run at
all. But though such go-betweens tend to be overlooked, even
despised, the subtlest of them have achieved a remarkable degree of
influence. Join veteran translator Anna Aslanyan to explore hidden
histories of cunning and ambition, heroism and incompetence. Meet
the figures behind the notable events of history, from the Great
Game to Brexit, and discover just how far a simple misunderstanding
can go.
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