The Possessed
Elif Batuman
longlisted, Guardian First Book Award, 2011
The Possessed draws on Elif Batuman’s articles in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and n+1 to tell the true story of one woman’s intellectual and sentimental education and her many strange encounters with scholars devoted to classic Russian writers.
In a series of intertwined essays about her life—and other people’s lives—in the world of Russian literature and scholarship, Batuman has written a funny, smart and self-deprecating book about Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Chekhov, and the academics who worship them. It is full of stories of ice palaces and giant apes, conference disasters and excursions into Uzbek poetry; but there is also wisdom, and deep appreciation of the great Russian novels.
Elif Batuman is a true original.
Praise for The Possessed:
Hilarious, wide-ranging, erudite, and, memorable, The Possessed is a sui generis feast for the mind and the fancy.
New York Times Book Review
The Possessed dances between autobiography, travel-writing and literary criticism with dazzling flair and originality.
Los Angeles Times
Elif Batuman
Elif Batuman was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey. She now lives inSan Francisco. Her articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine andthe literary journal n+1. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundaton Writers’ Awardand teaches at S… »
