Leonid Tsypkin

Everything is always topsy turvy here he said A small town in the Ural mountains is the backdrop to the heartbreak and joys of a Russian Jewish family witnessing romance and illness funerals and friendships and the catastrophe of wartime invasion Amidst the snowy peaks of the Ararat valley a married couple from Moscow admire the view from their hotel balcony unprepared for the absurdist realities of tourism in the USSR From chandeliered metro stations to institute bus stops monolithic skyscrapers and cockroach infested apartments Leonid Tsypkin evokes the tragicomedy of Soviet existence in transcendental prose

Join Dostoevsky on his tumultuous honeymoon in this hypnotic cult classic , introduced by Susan Sontag.A wonderful work of art.Jon McGregorExtraordinary in its confidence and enchantment.Chris PowerAddictive, dreamlike and dazzlingly unique.Adam ThirlwellLuminous, melancholy and enraptured.Chloe AridjisWhy was I reading this book now, in a railway-carriage, beneath a wavering, flickering, electric light-bulb . . Summer, 1867: The newlywed Dostoevsky and his young wife Anna - his one-time secretary - are travelling to the German spa resort of Baden-Baden on honeymoon. Their love is ecstatic, yet the author is plagued by demons: haunted by his crimes and punishments, consumed by fevers of jealousy, gambling to avoid mounting debts and shaken by epileptic fits.Winter, 1970s: Our Jewish narrator embarks on a pilgrimage from Moscow to Leningrad to trace the footsteps of his literary hero. As the train travels across the Soviet Unions bleak expanses, he immerses himself in Annas travel journal: and their journeys - past and present, real and imagined - soon become entwined.The result of a clandestine literary vocation, Summer in Baden-Badenwas smuggled out of the Soviet Union in 1981 and first published in a Russian emigre weekly in the USA. It has since been hailed as a trailblazing modern classic, translated into more than twenty languages - and its hypnotic, enigmatic power only grows.

One bitterly cold winter in the 1970s, Leonid Tsypkin''s obsession with Dostoyevsky leads him to Leningrad by train, so that he can see for himself where his hero died. As the train makes its way across Russia, a journal inspires Tsypkin to conjure up the summer of 1867, when Dosteyevsky and his young wife Anna travelled across Europe to Baden-Baden. The destructive demons that beset Dostoyevsky in his later life were in full force at this time, and man and wife battled for their very souls. Yet, in Tsypkin''s hands, this elegy to the great Russian writer becomes a glorious and unforgettable love story.

" La littérature de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle est un terrain maintes fois traversé : y découvrir quelque chef-d'?uvre oublié/. / semble pour le moins improbable. C'est pourtant ce qui m'est arrivé à Londres, il y a une dizaine d'années. Je tiens Un été à Baden-Baden pour l'une des ?uvres les plus belles, les plus exaltantes et les plus originales de son siècle en matière de récit et de fiction. Outre la description de l'incomparable Dostoïevski, le roman de Tsypkin offre un extraordinaire parcours mental de la réalité russe/. /, un portrait retentissant et vivant de toute la littérature. Pouchkine, Tourgueniev/. / et les grandes figures de la littérature du XXe siècle et de la lutte pour la justice - Tsvetaeva, Soljenitsyne, Sakharov et Bonner - sont également convoqués, déversés dans la narration. On sort d'Un été à Baden-Baden purifié, secoué, fortifié. " Susan Sontag, juillet 2001.

Published 20 years after the death of its author, SUMMER IN BADEN-BADEN begins in the form of a memoir: the narrator is traveling by train to the famed Black Forest spa, and en route he is reading the account by Dostoevsky's wife, Anna, of their years together. Simultaneously, it tells the story of the writer's marriage, and of the months in 1867 he and Anna, who was pregnant, spent in Baden-Baden, where Dostoevsky wrote, gambled, drank, and agonized over the direction his work was taking. Interwoven with these two stories are disquisitions on the characters in Dostoevsky's novels, his friends, and his anti-Semitism. Introduction by Susan Sontag. A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

"Everything is always topsy-turvy here," he said.A small town in the Ural mountains is the backdrop to the heartbreak and joys of a Russian-Jewish family, witnessing romance and illness, funerals and friendships, and the catastrophe of wartime invasion.Amidst the snowy peaks of the Ararat valley, a married couple from Moscow admire the view from their hotel balcony, unprepared for the absurdist realities of tourism in the USSR. From chandeliered metro stations to institute bus stops, monolithic skyscrapers and cockroach-infested apartments, Leonid Tsypkin evokes the tragicomedy of Soviet existence in transcendental prose.

Join Dostoevsky on his tumultuous honeymoon in this hypnotic cult classic , introduced by Susan Sontag.''A wonderful work of art.'' Jon McGregor''Extraordinary in its confidence and enchantment.'' Chris Power''Addictive, dreamlike and dazzlingly unique.'' Adam Thirlwell''Luminous, melancholy and enraptured.'' Chloe AridjisWhy was I reading this book now, in a railway-carriage, beneath a wavering, flickering, electric light-bulb . . Summer, 1867: The newlywed Dostoevsky and his young wife Anna - his one-time secretary - are travelling to the German spa resort of Baden-Baden on honeymoon. Their love is ecstatic, yet the author is plagued by demons: haunted by his crimes and punishments, consumed by fevers of jealousy, gambling to avoid mounting debts and shaken by epileptic fits.

Esta singular novela transcurre en dos planos temporales. Uno arranca en 1867 y recrea el viaje que Dostoievski y su joven esposa, Ana Grigorievna, hicieron por distintas capitales de Europa durante cuatro tormentosos años de enfermedad, pobreza, juego y lucha contra sus propios fantasmas; el otro recoge en un indefinido presente, el viaje del propio autor de Moscu a un Leningrado aun herido por los horrores del sitio, reconstruyendo las huellas de Dostoievski con la ayuda del diario de Ana.