Eugene Onegin - by Alexander Pushkin (Paperback)

About the Book

A wonderful translation of Pushkin's classic novel by the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Godel, Escher, Bach.

Book Synopsis

A stunning and playful translation of a Russian classic, from a prizewinning scholar in comparative literature and cognition.

"Hofstadter gives this translation a bubbling excitement very much in the fashion of the original." -Wall Street Journal

Sparked by reading Jim Falen's beautiful English version of Eugene Onegin (published in 1992), Douglas Hofstadter presents a more liberal, distinctly American, colloquial version of the Alexander Pushkin classic. Hofstadter's version is entirely in so-called "Onegin stanzas" - a unique sonnet form devised by Pushkin with a very intricate rhythmic and rhyming pattern. There is also a preface in Onegin stanzas, in which Hofstadter talks about Pushkin, his novel in verse, its form and content, the challenges of translating it into English and his deep admiration for Falen's version.

Review Quotes

"A masterly performance, and a thoroughly charming book."--Kirkus

"Akin to the spirit of Pushkin's original in its playfulness... Hofstadter's version certainly holds its own in the pleiade of English Onegin versifications... Reading Hofstadter's translation is a rewarding experience... His genuine enthusiasm for Pushkin's poetry is truly inspirational."--Comparative Literature Studies

"Hofstadter gives this translation a bubbling excitement very much in the fashion of the original."--Wall Street Journal

"Pushkin's story of a rich, bored young man who rather offhandedly destroys his chance at love by killing a friend in a duel and alienating his would-be beloved is equally delightful in Hofstadter's sparkling, breezy version that catches the novel's combination of wry, Austenish provincial romance and Byronic irony, digressiveness, and satire."--Booklist

About the Author

Douglas R. Hofstadter is College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gödel, Escher, Bach; Metamagical Themas; Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies; I Am a Strange Loop; "Translator, Trader"; and most recently, Ambigrammia: Between Creation and Discovery.  He has also translated books from several languages into English.