Less Than One - (FSG Classics) by Joseph Brodsky (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This collection of essays thrusts Brodsky--heretofore known more for his poetry and translations--into the forefront of the Third Wave of Russian emigre writers. His insights into the works of Dostoyevsky, Mandelstam, Platonov, as well as non-Russian poets Auden, Cavafy and Montale are brilliant. While the Western popularity of many other Third Wavers has been stunted by their inability to write in English, Brodsky consumed the language to attain a closer proximity to poets such as Auden. The book, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, opens and closes with revealing autobiographical essay.

Review Quotes

"[E]vinces a supple, witty mastery of the English language...[P]rovides deeply illuminating insights into the Russian literary tradition, political climate, and modern poetry and poetics." --Library Journal

About the Author

Joseph Brodsky (1940-96) came to the United States in 1972, an involuntary exile from the Soviet Union. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 and served as Poet Laureate of the United States in 1991 and 1992. His books include Less Than One, On Grief and Reason, Selected Poems, and many others.