Strolls with Pushkin

Andrei Sinyavsky (1925-1997) was a writer of fiction and nonfiction. After emigrating to France in 1973, he taught for many years as professor of Slavic studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy (1951-2015) was professor of Russian at Barnard College. Slava I. Yastremski (1952-2015) was professor of Russian at Bucknell University.

In the guise of a spirited, iconoclastic study of the presiding deity of Russian literature, the great Andrei Sinyavsky (writing as his bolder alter ego, Abram Tertz) has composed an ardent and fastidious attack on philistinism in all its forms: literary, psychological, and political. -- Susan Sontag In his alter ego as Tertz, Sinyavsky was the David to every institutional Goliath, picking off the monumental cult of the national poet of the Stalin period and the sentimentalized icon of Russia Abroad. His shock tactics were Pushkinian: irreverent wit, conversational tone, thinking outside the box. And guess what? Pushkin was no saint, but his genius is supremely alive and human in this brilliant appreciation. All readers should find in this spirited classic of literary and cultural criticism, vibrantly translated, expertly introduced and annotated, license to our own individual musings with two great writers and writing. -- Andrew Kahn, University of Oxford This translation of Sinyavsky's subversive text achieves the impossible, shocking, entertaining, and beguiling us into a freer, more lively appreciation of the liberating power of language. -- Cathy Porter, Independent Given its title, Sinyavsky's work is appropriately rambling and easygoing, but also brilliantly iconoclastic about this most iconic of Russian writers. -- Michael Dirda Washington Post Enhancing this accessible translation of a subtle and complex text, Catharine Nepomnyashchy has written a fine introduction to summarize Pushkin's life, works and subsequent cult status. -- Phoebe Taplin Russia Beyond the Headlines A playful appreciation of Pushkin's playfulness. -- Gary Saul Morson New York Review of Books Andrei Sinyavsky/Abram Tertz was one of the most gifted Russian writers of the postwar era. Most of his work is now in print in Russia, but most of the English translations seem to have gone out of print. It will be an excellent thing if Strolls with Pushkin leads us back to him. We need his free and welcoming spirit more than ever. -- Richard Pevear The Hudson Review

• Introduction Strolls with Pushkin A Journey to the River Black Remembering Cathy Nepomnyaschchy and Slava Yastremski Notes Notes on the Text