Read more
''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, a gifted craftsman, moves from traditional village life to the world of industry. He falls in love with steam locomotives, hoping to harness the power of machines to bring an end to human misery. Before long he is disillusioned. His adopted son, Sasha Dvanov, sets out across the steppes in pursuit of revolution, together with his companion, Kopionkin, knight errant of the martyred revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. Perhaps communism will be born spontaneously of human yearning? In the town of Chevengur, a group of impatient Bolsheviks are liquidating the bourgeoisie and half-bourgeoisie, and relocating the buildings. Communism, they believe, will come into being once everything else has been eliminated. Chevengur is a philosophical novel rich in psychological, social and sensuous detail. Unpublished during Andrey Platonov''s life, it is now one of the most celebrated of Russian novels. Along with The Foundation Pit, Soul and Happy Moscow , it is 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
About the author
Andrey Platonovich Platonov (1899-1951) began publishing poems and articles in 1918, while studying engineering. Between 1927 and 1932 he wrote his most politically controversial works, some of them first published in Russian only in the 1990s. After reading his story 'For Future Use', Stalin referred to Platonov as 'an agent of our enemies'. From September 1942, after being recommended to the chief editor of Red Star by his friend Vasily Grossman, Platonov worked as a war correspondent. He died in 1951, of tuberculosis caught from his son, who had spent three years in the Gulag. Happy Moscow, one of his finest novels, was first published in Russia only in 1991; letters, notebook entries and unfinished stories continue to appear.Robert Chandler's translations from Russian include works by Alexander Pushkin, Andrey Platonov, Vasily Grossman and Hamid Ismailov. He is the editor and main translator of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov, and together with Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski he co-edited The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry.Elizabeth Chandler is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler, of Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter and several works by Andrey Platonov and Vasily Grossman.