Friedrich Gorenstein (1932-2002), born in a Jewish family in Kyiv, is one of the most important and original writers of post-Stalinist Russian literature. Unable to publish in the Soviet Union due to censorship, he emigrated to West Berlin in 1980 and lived there until his death.Andrew Bromfield is a translator of Russian literary and cultural texts with more than forty years of experience. His numerous translations range from Leo Tolstoy and Mikhail Bulgakov to more modern authors such as Boris Akunin, Victor Pelevin, and Mikhail Shishkin. He currently works out of Bethesda, Maryland.Marat Grinberg is a scholar of Jewish literature, culture, and cinema, and currently a professor of Russian and humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Grinberg’s latest book is The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines. He has written extensively on Friedrich Gorenstein.

Following in Dostoevsky’s footsteps, Friedrich Gorenstein grapples with his predecessor’s legacy, confronting the ultimate questions of human existence. Like a modern-day biblical prophet, he assails Christian moral complacency in the shadow of the twentieth century’s catastrophes. He stands as a severe and uncompromising judge, exposing antisemitism as a spiritual affliction that corrupts both Christians and Jews. Andrew Bromfield’s masterful translation faithfully conveys the intense solemnity and dark irony that define Gorenstein’s style.—Mikhail Krutikov, University of MichiganOne of the most significant unofficial novels of the late-Soviet religious renaissance, Friedrich Gorenstein’s Psalm is a generically innovative, stylistically daring, and theologically provocative reflection on Soviet history, portrayed as the realization of the Biblical prophet Ezekiel’s four curses.  As if itself aspiring to a place within the Jewish prophetic tradition, Psalm foretells more of God’s punishments to come and sharply critiques the assimilated Soviet Jewry, even as it insists on the historical and theological preeminence of Judaism. Andrew Bromfield’s translation sensitively captures the stylistic fluctuation and rhythm of Gorenstein’s mesmerizing prose to bring to us the vision of a world both desolate and imbued with divine presence.—Anna Schur, Keene State College

• Translator’s PrefacePsalm: A Novel/Reflection on the Four Plagues of the LordA Parable of a Lost BrotherA Parable of the Torments of EvildoersA Parable of FornicationA Parable of Pestilence of the SpiritA Parable of a Broken ChaliceAfterword: The Soviet Jewish Haftarah: Friedrich Gorenstein’s Psalm, by Marat Grinberg