The Enigma of Isaac Babel Biography, History, Context [Hardcover]

A literary cult figure on a par with Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel has remained an enigma ever since he disappeared, along with his archive, inside Stalin's secret police headquarters in May of 1939. Made famous byRed Cavalry, a book about the Russian civil war (he was the world's first embedded war reporter), another book about the Jewish gangsters of his native Odessa, and yet another about his own Russian Jewish childhood, Babel has been celebrated by generations of readers, all craving fuller knowledge of his works and days. Bringing together scholars of different countries and areas of specialization, the present volume is the first examination of Babel's life and art since the fall of communism and the opening of Soviet archives. Part biography, part history, part critical examination of the writer's legacy in Russian, European, and Jewish cultural contexts,The Enigma of Isaac Babelwill be of interest to the general reader and specialist alike.

This collection of articles by some of the leading scholars working on Isaac Babel in recent times represents a veritable treasure trove for anyone researching or teaching Babel's works . . . A volume that sheds light on this most enigmatic of Soviet writers from so many angles is both overdue and welcome; readers of Babel should devour it with relish. Greogry Freidin's collection of the articles,The Enigma of Isacc Babel, covers an impressive range and includes much of value. The Enigma of Isaac Babelis infused with a sense of loss: Babel's manuscripts and correspondence were arrested with him, presumed lost in the wake of his execution at the age of forty-five. . . Highlighting the complexities of what it meant for Babel to be a Jew from Odessa who wrote in Russian in the Soviet Union, the volume successfully demonstrates his centrality to European, Soviet, and Jewish literary and historical traditions. . . In its reverence for the relics of a writer who left so little to posterity,lC