Be as Children

by Vladimir Sharov, Oliver Ready (Translator), Caryl Emerson (Afterword)

Overview

At the centre of Be as Children is an ailing Vladimir Lenin, infected not with syphilis, as some historians have claimed, but with Christian fervour. Regressing stroke by stroke to an infancy of his own, he renounces his faith in the proletariat and puts all his hope in the many children left homeless and orphaned by the Civil War. Only they will be loyal to the cause and only they can save it. Around this story Sharov weaves two other plots: a murderer who converts a Siberian people to Christianity and the life story of a female holy fool. Epic in scope and highly original in execution, Be as Little Children shows exactly why, since his untimely death in 2018, Vladimir Sharov has been widely celebrated in Russia as one of the few outstanding novelists of his era and a true heir to the classic authors of the nineteenth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912868797
Publisher:	Dedalus Press, The
Publication date:	11/17/2021
Series:	Dedalus Europe
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	494
File size:	705 KB

About the Author

A historian of late-medieval Russia by training Vladimir Sharov(1952-2018), first turned to fiction in the late 1970s. It was not until the 1990s, however, that his extraordinarily imaginative and daring novels come to the attention of the public. When they did, they caused acrimony and controversy. Before and During in 2014 was his first novel to appear in English, which was followed in February 2018 by The Rehearsals, and in 2021 by Be as Children all translated by Oliver Ready. He has won all the major Russian literary prizes including the Booker Prize in 2014. Before and During won The Read Russia Prize in 2015 and in 2018 The Rehearsals won The Read Russia Prize for the best translation of a contemporary Russian novel into any language.
Oliver Ready is a Research Fellow of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, where he has taught Russian for a number of years. His translations include five books for Dedalus: The Zero Train and The Prussian Bride by Yuri Buida and Before and During, The Rehearsals and Be as Children by Vladimir Sharov and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment(Penguin), Nikolai Gogol's And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon(Pushkin). Oliver Ready's translation of The Prussian Bride was awarded the inaugural Russian Translation Prize in 2005 and his translation of Before and During won The Read Russia Prize 2015 and The Rehearsals won The Read Russia Prize for the best translation of a contemporary Russian novel into any language in 2018. He is the author of Persisting in Folly: Russian Writers in Search of Wisdom, 1963-2013 (Peter Lang).
Caryl Emerson is an American academic and critic. She is Emeritus Professor of Russian Literature at Princeton University.

Editorial Reviews

Be As Children by Vladimir Sharov, superbly translated by Oliver Ready, is a hugely inventive tumble through a reimagined version of Russian history in which, among many other events, a post-stroke Lenin decides children are the only real hope of the revolution. It's one of the best novels I've read so far this year.'

Declan O'Driscoll, reviewer for The Irish Times

Sharov has achieved a remarkable success with Be as Children, which suggests a Christian, Russian form of magical realism. A modern book about dark Soviet times, it is a rich and resonant read perfect for our turbulent present.'

Sharif Gemie in BookBlast

'Be as Children is certainly an unusual novel, but it's a rewardingly rich text — a good story, even.'

Michael Orthofer in The Complete Review

'In short, this is another absolutely brilliant book by Sharov, a thoroughly enjoyable read, a book you can really get your teeth into and one that will keep you going for some time.'

John Alvey in The Modern Review

From the Publisher