Babi Yar and Other Poems by Ilya Ehrenburg, translated by Anna Krushelnitskaya
Ilya Ehrenburg (1891–1967) was one of the most prolific Russian writers of the twentieth-century. He wrote nearly a hundred books, including The Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito and His Disciples, Life of the Automobile, The Fall of Paris and The Storm. He served as a Russian war correspondent in France during World War I and later covered the Spanish Civil War for Izvestia. During World War II his outspoken columns won him a huge following among Red Army soldiers – and the personal enmity of Hitler, who sought his capture and execution. Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman also edited The Black Book of Soviet Jewry, documenting the Holocaust in Nazi occupied Soviet territory. His 1954 novel The Thaw gave its name to the Khrushchev years in the Soviet Union. His memoir People, Years, Life provocatively tested the limits of Soviet censorship by championing the work of old friends like Marina Tsvetaeva, Isaac Babel, and OsipMandelstam. While Ehrenburg’s prose works have been translated into many languages, Babi Yar and Other Poems makes a representative selection of his poetry available in English for the first time.
‘Clear, accurate translations of a writer who – perhaps more than anyone – embodies all the complexities of Soviet cultural and political history – and who memorably identified himself with Doubting Thomas.’ Robert Chandler
Smokestack Books
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