{"title":"Andrey Platonov","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"foundation-pit-book-andrey-platonov-9780099529743","title":"The Foundation Pit","description":"TRANSLATED BY ROBERT AND ELIZABETH CHANDLER AND OLGA MEERSON  Platonov's dystopian novel describes the lives of a group of Soviet workers who believe they are laying the foundations for a radiant future. As they work harder and dig deeper, their optimism turns to violence and it becomes clear that what is being dug is not a foundation pit but an immense grave.  This new translation, by Robert \u0026amp; Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson, is based on the definitive edition recently published by Pushkin House in Leningrad.  All previous translations were done from a seriously bowdlerized text.  Robert Chandler is also the translator of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate.  The American scholar Olga Meerson has written extensively on Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Platonov and many other Russian authors.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516332646673,"sku":"GOR002320442","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49727368691985,"sku":"NGR9780099529743","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50007557472529,"sku":"GOR010715965","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50422725869841,"sku":"GOR004052533","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52494764409105,"sku":"GOR012467736","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099529742.jpg?v=1751004500"},{"product_id":"happy-moscow-book-andrey-platonov-9780099577256","title":"Happy Moscow","description":"TRANSLATED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT CHANDLER  Moscow in the 1930s is a symbol of Soviet paradise; a fairy-tale capital where, in Stalin's words, 'life has become better, life has become merrier\". Beautiful, passionate, Moscow Chestnova bears her captial's name, and seeks the happiness it promises. She flits from man to man, fascinated by the brave new world supposedly taking shape around her, on a quest for the better life.   This anarchic satire is accompanied by related works - short stories, an essay and a screenplay - and through Robert Chandler's acclaimed new translations Platonov's extraordinary prose and original vision can at last be experienced in full.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49579293081873,"sku":"GOR007675236","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49802503454993,"sku":"NGR9780099577256","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099577259.jpg?v=1750811351"},{"product_id":"chevengur-book-andrey-platonov-9781843431527","title":"Chevengur","description":"'Platonov is an extraordinary writer, perhaps the most brilliant Russian writer of the twentieth century' New York Review of Books  The Soviet Don Quixote, Chevengur is now seen by many Russian writers as Russia's greatest novel of the last century. This is the first English version to convey its subtlety and depth.  Zakhar Pavlovich comes from a world of traditional crafts to work as a train mechanic, motivated by his belief in the transformative power of industry. His adopted son, Sasha Dvanov, embraces revolution, which will transform everything: the words we speak and the lives we live, souls and bodies, the soil underfoot and the sun overhead.  Seeking communism, Dvanov joins up with Stepan Kopionkin, a warrior for the cause whose steed is the fearsome cart horse Strength of the Proletariat. Together they cross the steppe, meeting counter-revolutionaries, desperados and visionaries of all kinds. At last they reach the isolated town of Chevengur. There communism is believed to have been achieved because everything that is not communism has been eliminated. And yet even in Chevengur the revolution recedes from sight.  Comic, ironic, grotesque, disturbingly poetic in its use of language and profoundly sorrowful, Chevengur is a revolutionary novel about revolutionary ardour and despair. Unpublished during Andrey Platonov’s life, it is now one of the most celebrated Russian novels, and the most ambitious and moving of Platonov’s recreations of a world undergoing revolutionary transformation.  'It was from the novel Chevengur that I learned to create \"literary worlds\". Platonov is a self-taught literary jeweller, a true believer who built dystopias. His love for his characters is instantly conveyed to readers' Andrey Kurkov  Translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49668167139601,"sku":"GOR013405217","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49751345856785,"sku":"NGR9781843431527","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50010106528017,"sku":"GOR013835554","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50137685655825,"sku":"GOR013378249","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52336717889809,"sku":"NLS9781843431527","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1843431521.jpg?v=1751439888"},{"product_id":"soul-book-andrey-platonov-9780099455134","title":"Soul","description":"TRANSLATED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT AND ELIZABETH CHANDLER  'For the mind, everthing is in the future' Platonov once wrote; 'for the heart, everything is in the past'. The protagonist of Soul is a young man torn between these opposing desires, sent as a kind of missionary to bring the values of modern Russia to his childhood home town in Central Asia. In this strange, haunting novella, as well as in the seven stories that accompany it, a rediscovered master of twentieth century Russian literature is shown at his wisest and most humane.  WITH AN AFTERWORD BY JOHN BERGER","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49727664095505,"sku":"NGR9780099455134","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50471775469841,"sku":"GOR008246853","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51472991944977,"sku":"GOR011919191","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0099455137.jpg?v=1751448788"},{"product_id":"chevengur-book-andrey-platonov-9781681377681","title":"Chevengur","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49970580619537,"sku":"CIN1681377683VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49975673913617,"sku":"CIN1681377683G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51045560615185,"sku":"NIN9781681377681","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53338646348049,"sku":"GOR014858923","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1681377683.jpg?v=1750993144"},{"product_id":"foundation-pit-book-andrey-platonov-9781590173053","title":"The Foundation Pit","description":"Translated from the Russian by Robert \u0026amp; Elizabeth Chandler and Olga Meerson\u003cbr\u003eWith notes and an afterword by Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn Andrey Platonov's \u003ci\u003eThe Foundation Pit\u003c\/i\u003e, a team of workers has been given the job of digging the foundation of an immense edifice, a palatial home for the perfect future that, they are convinced, is at hand. But the harder the team works, the deeper they dig, the more things go wrong, and it becomes clear that what is being dug is not a foundation but an immense grave. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Foundation Pit\u003c\/i\u003e is Platonov's most overtly political book, written in direct response to the staggering brutalities of Stalin's collectivization of Russian agriculture. It is also a literary masterpiece. Seeking to evoke unspeakable realities, Platonov deforms and transforms language in pages that echo both with the alienating doublespeak of power and the stark simplicity of prayer. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis English translation is the first and only one to be based on the definitive edition published by Pushkin House in Moscow. It includes extensive notes and, in an appendix, several striking passages deleted by Platonov. Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson's afterword discusses the historical context and style of Platonov's most haunted and troubling work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50031803498769,"sku":"CIN1590173058G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50151025377553,"sku":"CIN1590173058VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51490874229009,"sku":"NIN9781590173053","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52836462526737,"sku":"GOR005318133","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1590173058.jpg?v=1750960115"},{"product_id":"soul-book-andrey-platonov-9781590172544","title":"Soul","description":"\u003cb\u003eA New York Review Books Original\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe Soviet writer Andrey Platonov saw much of his work suppressed or censored in his lifetime. In recent decades, however, these lost works have reemerged, and the eerie poetry and poignant humanity of Platonov's vision have become ever more clear. For Nadezhda Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky, Platonov was the writer who most profoundly registered the spiritual shock of revolution. For a new generation of innovative post-Soviet Russian writers he figures \u003cbr\u003eas a daring explorer of word and world, the master of what has been called alternative realism. Depicting a devastated world that is both terrifying and sublime, Platonov is, without doubt, a universal writer who is as solitary and haunting as Kafka. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis volume gathers eight works that show Platonov at his tenderest, warmest, and subtlest. Among them are The Return, about an officer's difficult homecoming at the end of World War I, described by Penelope Fitzgerald as one of three great works of Russian literature of the millennium; The River Potudan, a moving account of a troubled marriage; and the title novella, the extraordinary tale of a young man unexpectedly transformed by his return to his Asian birthplace, where he finds his people deprived not only of food and dwelling, but of memory and speech. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis prizewinning English translation is the first to be based on the newly available uncensored texts of Platonov's short fiction.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50168576868625,"sku":"CIN159017254XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50192489480465,"sku":"CIN159017254XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51037976690961,"sku":"NIN9781590172544","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51523466330385,"sku":"GOR011230515","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52108532875537,"sku":"GOR004492611","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53154761408785,"sku":"GOR014784137","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B0095H1WC4.jpg?v=1751309459"},{"product_id":"soul-book-andrey-platonov-9781843430384","title":"Soul","description":"Born in Central Asia Chagataev, the hero, goes on to be educated in Moscow. 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Zakhar Pavlovich comes from a world of traditional crafts to work as a train mechanic, motivated by his belief in the transformative power of industry. His adopted son, Sasha Dvanov, embraces revolution, which will transform everything: the words we speak and the lives we live, souls and bodies, the soil underfoot and the sun overhead.  Seeking communism, Dvanov joins up with Stepan Kopionkin, a warrior for the cause whose steed is the fearsome cart horse Strength of the Proletariat. Together they cross the steppe, meeting counter-revolutionaries, desperados and visionaries of all kinds. At last they reach the isolated town of Chevengur. There communism is believed to have been achieved because everything that is not communism has been eliminated. And yet even in Chevengur the revolution recedes from sight.  Comic, ironic, grotesque, disturbingly poetic in its use of language and profoundly sorrowful, Chevengur is a revolutionary novel about revolutionary ardour and despair. Unpublished during Andrey Platonov’s life, it is now one of the most celebrated Russian novels, and the most ambitious and moving of Platonov’s recreations of a world undergoing revolutionary transformation.  'It was from the novel Chevengur that I learned to create \"literary worlds\". Platonov is a self-taught literary jeweller, a true believer who built dystopias. 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As an orphan, she knew tough times--but things are changing now. Comrade Stalin has proclaimed that Life has become better  Life has become merrier  and Moscow herself is poised to join the Soviet elite. But her ambitions are thwarted when a freak accident propels her flaming from the sky. A new, stranger life begins. Moscow drifts from man to man, through dance halls, all-night diners, and laboratories in which the secret of immortality is actively being investigated, exploring the endless avenues and vacant spaces of the great city whose name she bears, looking for happiness, somewhere, still. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eUnpublishable during Platonov's lifetime, \u003ci\u003eHappy Moscow\u003c\/i\u003e first appeared in Russian only in 1991. This new edition contains not only a revised translation of \u003ci\u003eHappy Moscow\u003c\/i\u003e but several related works: a screenplay, a prescient essay about ecological catastrophe, and two short stories in which same characters reappear and the reader sees the mind of an extraordinary writer at work.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51691038572817,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51691038736657,"sku":"GOR006749854","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ LIKE_NEW \/ SBYB","offer_id":51804222587153,"sku":"CIN1590175859LN","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52575266177297,"sku":"NIN9781590175859","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1590175859.jpg?v=1751437540"},{"product_id":"return-and-other-stories-book-andrey-platonov-9781846553387","title":"The Return and Other Stories","description":"\"Reading Platonov, one gets a sense of the relentless, implacable absurdity built into the language and with each...utterance, that absurdity deepens\" - Joseph Brodsky  People are on the move in all ten stories in this collection, coming home as in \"The Return\", leaving home as in \"Rubbish Wind\", travelling far away from their country as in \"The Locks of Epiphan\", trying to improve their lives and those of others, running away, searching, fleeing. Their journeys are accompanied by two motives which characterize the writing of Andrey Platonov: optimism and faith in the goodness of humanity, and abject despair at the cruelty, randomness, and apparent senselessness of our existence. The protagonists are torn between these poles and sometimes a synthesis shines through the mists of the apparent naivety of faith and the blackness of despair: the hope against hope that a better life is still possible.  Though Russian readers and critics have come to look on Platonov as among their greatest prose writers of this century, he has yet to enjoy a parallel international reputation - mainly because much of his best writing was suppressed for more than 60 years. Combining a realism inspired by his work as an engineer with poetic vision and the deceptively simple language of folk tales, Platonov sets his stories alight by using language in a way that renders it unfamiliar, makes the ordinary seem unusual and the extraordinary logical. This translation is the first to present the full range of Platonov's gift as a short story writer to an English-language readership, showing why it is that Joseph Brodsky regarded Platonov as the equal of Joyce, Kafka and Proust.  \"...strange, almost abrupt, a hallucinatory, nightmarish parable of hysterical laughter and terrifying silences\" - Eileen Battersby, Irish Times - in reference to The Foundation Pit","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51838418682129,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51838418780433,"sku":"GOR012361878","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781846553387.jpg?v=1753185705"},{"product_id":"cevengur-book-andrey-platonov-9789753427449","title":"Çevengur","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52827744567569,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52827744829713,"sku":"GOR014632604","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9789753427449.jpg?v=1764580658"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-andrey-platonov.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}