Read Around Europe Challenge
Read at least one book by an author from each country in Europe.
Best books from Europe (2885)
1971.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy EN
RussiaDescription:
Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of ... continue
1972.
The New Adventures of Helen: Magical Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya EN
Description:
“One of Russia’s best living writers . . . Her tales inhabit a borderline between this world and the next.” —The New York Times At first glance, the stories in The New Adventures of Helen seems simple, even child-like, but a deep reading reveals satire and darkness manifested through classic fairy tale tropes characteristically upended by Petrushevskaya. These “adult fairy tales” ask deep questions about gender, love, history, memory, and the future, taking place in times between history and the now. These stories, quirky but yet inspired by a confident hopefulness, will inspire and provoke En... continue
1973.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich : (50th Anniversary Edition) by Alexander Solzhenitsyn EN
Description:
The first published novel from the controversial Nobel Prize winning Russian author of The Gulag Archipelago. In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins this masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, a harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength. First published in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, it ... continue
1974.
Holy Winter by Maria Stepanova EN
Description:
A deeply moving poem about winter and exile, war and the pandemic from "Russia's greatest living poet" (Poetry) and the acclaimed author of In Memory of Memory
1975.
Zulajka opent haar ogen by Guzel Jachina NL
Description:
In 1930 wordt een Tartaars dorp binnengevallen door de communisten. Ook Zulajka wordt op transport gesteld naar Siberië, nadat haar man, die haar onderdrukte, is doodgeschoten. De erbarmelijke treinreis in de veewagon duurt een halfjaar, en uiteindelijk belanden enkelen op een stuk tajga waar ze zelf moeten zien te overleven. Zulajka weet zich staande te houden, dankzij een krankzinnige Duitse arts, die haar helpt bij de bevalling van haar zoon, en Ignatov, de moordenaar van haar man op wie ze verliefd wordt. Maar het is vooral haar eigen ontwikkeling die haar sterk maakt, en ervoor zorgt... continue
1977.
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky EN
Description:
'My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?' A poignant tale of love and loneliness from Russia's foremost writer. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.
1978.
Description:
WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD, THE LEO TOLSTOY YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD AND THE BEST PROSE WORK OF THE YEAR AWARD A sweeping, multi-award winning novel set in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, as gangs of marauding soldiers terrorise and plunder the countryside. Zuleikha, the 'pitiful hen', is living in the home of her brutal husband and despotic mother-in-law in a small Tatar village. When her husband is executed by communist soldiers for hiding grain, she is arrested and sent into exile in Siberia. In the first gruelling winter, hundreds die of hunger, cold and exhaustion. Yet forced to s... continue
1979.
Description:
Traces the impact of the Russian Revolution on three people who try to challenge the new regime
1980.
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky EN
Description:
Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of love, torn between two women—the notorious kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaia—both involved, in turn, with the corrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkin’s honesty, goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moral emptiness of those around him. In her revision of the Garnett translation, Anna Brailovsky has corrected inaccuracies wrought by Garnett’s drastic anglicization of the novel, restoring as much as possible the syntactical structure... continue