A Hero of Our Time

Front Cover
Penguin, May 26, 2009 - Fiction - 208 pages
A brilliant new translation of a perennial favorite of Russian literature
 
The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled upon publication. Its dissipated hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Chekhov in Lermontov's own century, and finds its modern-day counterparts in Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, the novels of Chuck Palahniuk, and the films and plays of Neil LaBute.
 

Contents

Introduction
xiii
PART ONE
3
BELA
5
BELA
45
PECHORINS DIARIES
57
TAMAN
59
PART TWO
73
PRINCESS MARY
75
THE FATALIST
159
Copyright

Other editions - View all

A Hero of Our Time
Mikhail Lermontov
Limited preview - 2009
A Hero of Our Time
Mikhail Lermontov
Limited preview - 2009
A Hero of Our Time
Mikhail Lermontov
No preview available - 2009

Common terms and phrases

Alexander Pushkin already amusing asked Azamat barely became Bela blind boy breath bullet carriage Caucasus Chechen Circassian cold Cossack cried dark daughter death doctor dragoon captain duel Eugene Onegin everything eyes face Farewell fate feel fortress galloped gaze Gelendzhik girl give grabbed greatcoat Grigory Alexandrovich Grushnitsky gully hand head heart Hero horse Kabardin Kazbich Kislovodsk lackey ladies laugh Lermontov Listen looked Mashuk Maxim Maximych mazurka Mikhail Lermontov minute morning mountains NEIL LABUTE never night novel o'clock once Ossetians pale peasant house Pechorin person pistol Podkumok River Princess Ligovsky Princess Mary Pyatigorsk replied Russian saklya sazhens seemed silence sitting slobodka smile someone soul staff captain started stood story suddenly Tatar tell thing thought threw told took turned uryadnik versts voice Vulich wait Werner window woman women word young princess

About the author (2009)

Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) made several journeys to the Caucasus before entering St, Petersburg Guards’ school, where he began writing poetry and autobiographical dramas in prose. Influenced by Byron, he is renowned as Russia’s one true Romantic poet. Lermontov greatly influenced Dostoyevsky and Blok; while Tolstoy and Chekhov regarded his prose as a model.

Natasha Randall (translator/introducer) has published translations of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (shortlisted for the 2008 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize) and Osip Mandelstam’s poetry as well as the work of contemporary writers Arkady Dragomoshchenko, Alexander Skidan, and Olga Zondberg. A frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, she lives in London.
 
Neil LaBute (foreword) is a film director, screenwriter and playwright. He is best known for his play and film In the Company of Men and his films Possession, The Shape of Things, and The Wicker Man.

Bibliographic information

TitleA Hero of Our Time
Penguin classics
AuthorMikhail Lermontov
Translated byNatasha Randall
ContributorsNatasha Randall, Neil LaBute
Editionillustrated
PublisherPenguin, 2009
ISBN0143105639, 9780143105633
Length208 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Fiction / Classics
Fiction / Historical / General
Fiction / Literary
  
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