Sisters of the Cross

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Literary
Cover of the book Sisters of the Cross by Alexei Remizov, Columbia University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Alexei Remizov ISBN: 9780231546157
Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication: December 19, 2017
Imprint: Columbia University Press Language: English
Author: Alexei Remizov
ISBN: 9780231546157
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication: December 19, 2017
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Language: English

Thirty-year-old Piotr Alekseevich Marakulin lives a contented, if humdrum life as a financial clerk in a Petersburg trading company. He is jolted out of his daily routine when, quite unexpectedly, he is accused of embezzlement and loses his job. This change of status brings him into contact with a number of women—the titular “sisters of the cross”—whose sufferings will lead him to question the ultimate meaning of the universe.

The first English translation of this remarkable 1910 novel by Alexei Remizov, an influential member of the Russian Symbolist movement, Sisters of the Cross is a masterpiece of early modernist fiction. In the tradition of Gogol’s Petersburg Tales and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, it deploys densely packed psychological prose and fluctuating narrative perspective to tell the story of a “poor clerk” who rebels against the suffering and humiliation afflicting both his own life and the lives of the remarkable women whom he encounters in the tenement building where he lives in Petersburg. The novel reaches its haunting climax at the beginning of the Whitsuntide festival, when Marakulin thinks he glimpses the coming of salvation both for himself and for the “fallen” actress Verochka, the unacknowledged love of his life, in one of the most powerfully drawn scenes in Symbolist literature. Remizov is best known as a writer of short stories and fairy tales, but this early novel, masterfully translated by Roger Keys and Brian Murphy, is perhaps his most significant work of sustained artistic prose.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Thirty-year-old Piotr Alekseevich Marakulin lives a contented, if humdrum life as a financial clerk in a Petersburg trading company. He is jolted out of his daily routine when, quite unexpectedly, he is accused of embezzlement and loses his job. This change of status brings him into contact with a number of women—the titular “sisters of the cross”—whose sufferings will lead him to question the ultimate meaning of the universe.

The first English translation of this remarkable 1910 novel by Alexei Remizov, an influential member of the Russian Symbolist movement, Sisters of the Cross is a masterpiece of early modernist fiction. In the tradition of Gogol’s Petersburg Tales and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, it deploys densely packed psychological prose and fluctuating narrative perspective to tell the story of a “poor clerk” who rebels against the suffering and humiliation afflicting both his own life and the lives of the remarkable women whom he encounters in the tenement building where he lives in Petersburg. The novel reaches its haunting climax at the beginning of the Whitsuntide festival, when Marakulin thinks he glimpses the coming of salvation both for himself and for the “fallen” actress Verochka, the unacknowledged love of his life, in one of the most powerfully drawn scenes in Symbolist literature. Remizov is best known as a writer of short stories and fairy tales, but this early novel, masterfully translated by Roger Keys and Brian Murphy, is perhaps his most significant work of sustained artistic prose.

More books from Columbia University Press

Cover of the book Sinophone Studies by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book The Art of Making Magazines by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book International Policy Rules and Inequality by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book The Best Business Writing 2013 by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book The Shape of Spectatorship by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Romantic Comedy by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book The Cinema of Terry Gilliam by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Night Passages by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Jordan and the Arab Uprisings by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Sources of Tibetan Tradition by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Criminal Lessons by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Subverting the Leviathan by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Troubled Fields by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book Winged Faith by Alexei Remizov
Cover of the book The New Crusades by Alexei Remizov
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy