Book details

Book description

Essayist and poet Joseph Brodsky was one of the most penetrating voices of the twentieth century. This prize-winning collection of his diverse essays includes uniquely powerful appreciations of great writers: on Dostoevsky and the development of Russian prose, on Auden and Akhmatova, Cavafy, Montale and Mandelstam. These are contrasted with his reflections on larger themes of tyranny and evil, and subtle evocations of his childhood in Leningrad. Brodsky's insightful appreciation of the intricacies of language, culture and identity connect these works, revealing his remarkable gifts as a prose writer. Joseph Brodsky died in January 1996. His last post was Five Colleges Professor of Literature at Mount Holyoke College. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Brodsky's other collection of essays On Grief and Reason is being reissued alongside Less than One in Penguin Modern Classics.