Stories about the occult, folk religions, superstition, and spiritual customs in Russia by one of the most essential 20th-century writers of short fiction and essays.
Though best known for her comic and satirical sketches of pre-Revolutionary Russia, Teffi was a writer of great range and human sympathy. The stories on other-worldly themes in this collection are some of Teffi's finest and most profound, displaying her acute psychological sensitivity beneath her characteristic wit and surface brilliance.
Other Worlds gathers together stories, written over a span of forty years, about the deep connection of the supernatural to everyday life in the Russian provinces and the persistent influence of the ancient Slavic gods in legends, superstitions, and customs, simultaneously coexisting with Russian Orthodox Christianity. In an early story, "A Quiet Backwater," a laundress gives a long disquisition on the name days of the different birds, insects, and animals, as well as the Feast of the Holy Spirit, a day on which "no one dares to trouble the earth." The story "Wild Evening" is about the fear of the unknown; "The Kind that Walk," a penetrating study of anti-semitism, and of xenophobia more generally; and "Baba-Yaga," about the archetypal Russian witch and her longing for wildness and freedom. In "Volya," the final autobiographical story, the power and pain of Baba Yaga is Teffi's own.
Autorentext
Teffi (1872-1952) was a popular writer in pre-revolutionary Russia, a favorite of Tsar Nicholas II and Lenin alike. She was born to a prominent St. Petersburg family and emigrated from Bolshevik Russia in 1919. Eventually settling in Paris, she became an important figure in the émigré literary scene and lived there until her death.
Robert Chandler has translated many NYRB Classics, including Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad and Life and Fate, as well as Soul and The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platanov. He lives in London.