Odessa Stories

The salty speech of the city's inhabitants is wonderfully rendered in a new translation by Boris Dralyuk... Hard-boiled language reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett * Vice *
Elegiac, but not in the usual sense: Babel's is an ebullient elegy, filled with violence, sex, and life * LA Review of Books *
Electric, heroically wrought prose * John Updike *
[Isaac Babel's stories] opened a door in my mind, and behind that door I found the room where I wanted to spend the rest of my life * Paul Auster *
Following his equally magical renderings of Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories in recent years, Mr Dralyuk has positioned himself as a master of the era's language, injecting welcome new life into an under-appreciated school of Russian literature * Economist *
One of those "where have you been all my life?" books -- Nick Lezard * Guardian *
This wonderful collection is a companion volume to Red Cavalry (2014). Babel is required reading -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times Books of the Year 2016 *
Odessa Stories is witty, surprising and full of amusing food references. Of course, Babel was not a 'food writer' but he wrote staggeringly well about food - the emotions that surround it, the headiness of it, the swindling of it -- Caroline Eden * The Island Review *
Sparkling, wily and loose-tongued... Babel's dialogue calls for a daring translator... Boris Dralyuk delivers brilliantly * TLS *
I like the first-person narrator of Isaac Babel's classic story about class, "In the Basement," who, at the end of the story, completely humiliated, tries to drown himself in a rain barrel, but is saved by his grandfather, who tells him: "Grandson, I go now to take castor oil, so I'll have something to lay on your grave." A really upbeat family story -- George Saunders * New York Times *
Like a fusion of David Sedaris' gentle, self-effacing comedy an Ernest Hemingway's staccato encounters with twentieth century brutality * Soviet Roulette *
A gripping, poignant collection of stories about his home city from one of the leading lights of European modernism * The New European *
His is still an original, sparky voice sounding out of the great Russian literary pantheon * RTE Arena *
This is a wonderful, highly readable collection of stories * The London Magazine *
Lively and entertaining, wonderfully written and gives a captivating yet poignant glimpse of a lost world. Plus it's a beautifully produced Pushkin edition - so what more could you want? * Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings (blog) *
Fine writing * East West Review *