Finally in paperback, this "monumental collection; gathers all of Babel's deft and brutal writing, including a wide array of previously unavailable material, from never-before-translated stories to plays and film scripts" (David Ulin, "Los Angeles Times"). Reviewing the work in "The New Republic," James Woods wrote that this groundbreaking volume "represents a triumph of translating, editing, and publishing. Beautiful to hold, scholarly and also popularly accessible, it is an enactment of love." Considered one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Babel has left his mark on a generation of readers and writers. This book will stand as Babel's final, most enduring legacy. Winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award; A "New York Times" Notable Book, a and "Library Journal" Best Book, a "Washington Post" Book World Rave, a "Village Voice" Favorite Book of the Year.

'One of those "where have you been all my life?" books' Nick Lezard, Guardian

In the city of Odessa, the lawless streets hide darker stories of their own. From the magnetic cruelty of mob boss Benya Krik to the devastating account of a young Jewish boy caught up in a pogrom, Odessa Stories uncovers the tales of gangsters, prostitutes, beggars and smugglers: no one can escape the pungent, sinewy force of Isaac Babel's pen.

Translated with precision and sensitivity by Boris Dralyuk, whose rendering of the rich Odessan slang is pitch-perfect, this acclaimed new translation of Odessa Stories contains the grittiest of Babel's tales, considered by may to be some of the greatest masterpieces of twentieth-century Russian literature.

"Amazing not only as literature but as biography."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times

One of the great masterpieces of Russian literature, the Red Cavalry cycle retains today the shocking freshness that made Babel's reputation when the stories were first published in the 1920s. Using his own experiences as a journalist and propagandist with the Red Army during the war against Poland, Babel brings to life an astonishing cast of characters from the exuberant, violent era of early Soviet history: commissars and colonels, Cossacks and peasants, and among them the bespectacled, Jewish writer/intellectual, observing it all and trying to establish his role in the new Russia.

Drawn from the acclaimed, award-winning Complete Works of Isaac Babel, this volume includes all of the Red Cavalry cycle; Babel's 1920 diary, from which the material for the fiction was drawn; and his preliminary sketches for the stories—the whole constituting a fascinating picture of a great writer turning life into art.

"Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic."—James Wood, The New Republic

From the early Soviet period, the impassioned short fiction of the great Russian-Jewish writer
One of the most powerful short-story writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Babel expressed his sense of inner conflict through disturbing tales that explored the contradictions of Russian society. Whether reflecting on anti-Semitism in stories such as ?Story of My Dovecote? and ?First Love, ? or depicting Jewish gangsters in his native Odessa, Babel's eye for the comical laid bare the ironies of history. His masterpiece, ?Red Cavalry, ? set in the Soviet-Polish war, is one of the classics of modern fiction. By turns flamboyant and restrained, this collection of Babel's best-known stories vividly expresses the horrors of his age.
?Amazing not only as literature but as biography.? ?Richard Bernstein, "The New York Times"
?Marvelously subtle, tragic, and often comic.? ?James Wood, "The New Republic"

"A book that will last, that you will reread all your life and then pass on to your grandchildren. Or ask to be buried with."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post

Following the historic publication of Norton's The Complete Works of Isaac Babel in the fall of 2001, The Collected Stories of Isaac Babel appears as the most authoritative and complete edition of his fiction ever published in paperback. Babel was best known for his mastery of the short story form—in which he ranks alongside Kafka and Hemingway—but his career was tragically cut short when he was murdered by Stalin's secret police. Edited by his daughter Nathalie Babel and translated by award-winner Peter Constantine, this paperback edition includes the stunning Red Cavalry Stories; The Odessa Tales, featuring the legendary gangster Benya Krik; and the tragic later stories, including "Guy de Maupassant." This will be the standard edition of Babel's stories for years to come.

"He is a writer who stabs the mind and the heart and the inner eye with short, savage strokes."—Richard Bernstein, New York Times

The Russian writer Isaac Babel (1894-1940) is widely acknowledged to be one of the great masters of twentieth-century literature, hailed as a genius by such critics as Lionel Trilling and Irving Howe. The work for which he is best known is a cycle of stories called Red Cavalry, which depicts the exploits of the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920 and is based on Babel's experiences as he rode with the Cossacks during the campaign. Throughout this period Babel kept a diary, in which he recorded the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in Ukraine and eastern Poland, and his own conflicted role as both Soviet revolutionary and Jew. The 1920 Diary, a vital source for Red Cavalry as well as a compelling narrative, is now published in English for the first time. The 1920 Diary is the most significant contemporary account of the tragedy of Eastern European Jewry during this period. The Diary also yields important insights into Babel's personal evolution, showing his youthful curiosity and his anguish as, frequently concealing his own Jewish identity, he mingled with the victimized Jews of the region's shtetls and with his Cossack comrades. Finally, the Diary sheds light on Babel's artistic development, revealing the path from observations recorded in excitement and despair to the painstakingly crafted narratives of the Red Cavalry cycle.

The Essential Fictions offers contemporary readers seventy-two short stories by one of twentieth-century Russia's premier storytellers, Isaac Babel. This unique volume, which includes Babel's famous Red Cavalry series and his Odessa Stories, is translated, edited, introduced, and annotated by Val Vinokur, a 2008 Guggenheim Fellow in Translation, and features illustrations by Yefim Ladyzhensky, a painter known for his depictions of everyday life under Soviet rule in Babel's native Odessa.Babel was born in 1894 into multicultural Odessa's thriving Jewish community. Working as a journalist, he witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War, and accompanied the Cossack horsemen of the Red Cavalry during the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, distilling these experiences into his fiction. Vinokur highlights Babel's "horrified hopefulness" and "doleful and bespectacled Jewish comedy" in the face of the bloody conflicts that plagued his generation. On the centenary of the revolution that toppled the Romanov tsars, Babel's fictions continue to absorb and fascinate contemporary readers interested in eastern European and Jewish literature as well as the history and politics of the twentieth century.