Taking Izmail
Shishkin, Mikhail / Schischkin, Michail / Bromfield, Andrew
In this 1999 work, now available for the first time in the English language, Mikhail Shishkin displays at full force the writing talents that have won him international recognition for books like Maidenhair and The Light and the Dark. The Izmail of the title is a border fortress town, taken and lost by Russian forces numerous times in history. Here it is taken as a metaphor for the task of mastering life itself, and the scope of the task is co...