Foolsburg

ebook The History of a Town

By Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin

cover image of Foolsburg

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

Download Libby on the App Store Download Libby on Google Play

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Library Name Distance
Loading...
The award-winning translators bring us a new translation of an 1870 comic novel by Russia's greatest satirist—whose mockery of Russian autocracy is as relevant as ever.
“Pevear and Volokhonsky [are the] reigning translators of Russian literature. . . .
In Russia, The History of a Town is read in schools and regarded as a masterpiece of 19th-century satire. . . . [This new translation] is an argument for the book’s Swiftian wit and its relevance to Russia and the United States today.” —The New York Times
A major classic in Russia since its publication, Foolsburg is the farcical chronicle of a fictional town and its hapless inhabitants as they passively endure the violence and lunacy of their rulers. The succession of brutal mayors of the town include such surreal extremes as a man with a music box instead of a brain and one so tall that he snaps in half during a windstorm. Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin marries biting satire reminiscent of Jonathan Swift with the fantastical absurdity of Nikolai Gogol, imbued throughout with his own brand of playful wordplay.
The award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have produced the first translation of this work into English that successfully captures its zany humor and enduring relevance.
Foolsburg