A small, dual-language selection of poetry from one of the most beloved Russian poets of the 20th century, Sergei Yesenin.

    These subversive tall tales and their colourful hero are the creation of Stepan Pisakhov (1879-1960), who lived his life in Arkhangelsk - a stone’s throw from the White Sea. Dmitry Trubin, from the same city, has illustrated the work; as an artist Trubin is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. Blackwell Boyce, from Canada but a once-upon-a-time resident of Arkhangelsk, has rendered the tales for the first time into English - and confesses to tinkering with two or three of them along the way.For readers who believe that all Russian literature is dark and depressing - Senya Malina Tells It Like It Was is going to surprise.

    Bursting into print with an impassioned poem on the death of Pushkin, he continued to attract unfavourable attention from the authorities while enjoying a high reputation in literary circles and beyond.Although he declared in one poem that he was ‘not Byron’, he was greatly influenced by his reading of Byron and of Walter Scott. His autobiographical lyrics and longer poems could be labelled as Romantic – Brodsky maintains – except for Lermontov’s ‘thoroughly corrosive self-knowledge’. Having served in the Caucasus, and taken part in dangerous engagements against the Chechens, like Pushkin he died in a duel of dubious legality.Lermontov was of Scottish descent, and this bilingual volume celebrates his bicentenary with new translations by 14 translator-poets, mostly Scottish.

    It includes poetry, prose, drama and scholarly texts, many of which appear in English translation for the first time. The three sections, -Rethinking Identities, - -'Little Terror' and Traumatic Writing, - and -Writing Politics, - address issues of critical relevance to contemporary Russian culture, history and politics. With its selection of texts and introductory essays 'Late and Post-Soviet Russian Literature: A Reader' brings university curricula into the twenty-first century.