Teffi: A Life of Letters and of Laughter

by Edythe Haber

Overview

Edythe Haber relies on letters, archival materials, and memoirs by contemporaries to create Teffi's biography, as well as to reveal the inner mechanisms of Russian literary life, both in the country and in emigration, and placing it in the rampant historical context. Readers are presented with a panorama of the brilliant artistic world of the Silver Age and the Paris of Russian emigres.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781788312585
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	10/18/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	1,045,147
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

ENG: Edythe Haber is Professor Emerita at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a researcher at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. An esteemed scholar of Mikhail Bulgakov, she decided after many years to return to Teffi, the subject of her Harvard Ph.D. dissertation (1971). The result is this book as well as many other publications on the writer, both in English and Russian.

RUS: Эдит Хейбер — заслуженный профессор Массачусетского университета (Бостон) и сотрудник Центра Дэвиса Гарвардского университета. Ее перу принадлежат авторитетная книга о раннем периоде жизни и творчества М. А. Булгакова и многочисленные публикации, посвященные Булгакову, Тэффи и Набокову. Она является одним из составителей и автором предисловий к «Переписке Тэффи с И. А. и В. Н. Буниными, 1920–1939» («Диаспора: Новые материалы». Вып. 1–3. Paris; СПб., 2001–2002). Э. Хейбер также написала введение к английскому переводу «Воспоминаний» Тэффи, изданному в Лондоне в 2016 году под названием «Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea», который удостоился специальной премии Пушкинского Дома за лучшую переводную книгу в 2017 году.

Table of Contents

List of Plates ix

Notes on the Text xiii

Acknowledgements xv

Introduction 1

1 "An Interesting Bunch": Family Background and Early Years 5

2 Literary Beginnings, 1898-1908 21

3 Ascent, 1908-15 46

4 Feasts and Plagues, 1910-16 66

5 A Farewell to Russia, Past and Future, 1915-19 81

6 Migration, 1919-24 99

7 Russia Abroad, 1924-31 120

8 A Slippery Slope, 1931-6 144

9 Tenderness and Angst, 1936-8 158

10 Zigzags in Life and Art, 1938-9 167

11 War and Its Aftermath, 1939-46 175

12 Struggle and Perseverance, 1946-51 195

13 Last Works, Last Days, 1952 210

Epilogue: Life After Teffi 225

Notes 229

Select Bibliography and Further Reading in English 277

Index 281

Editorial Reviews

Haber is a scrupulous scholar and she has been researching Teffi’s life and work for 40 years. She takes nothing for granted and backs all her assertions with definite evidence ... an exemplary biographer.” - Robert Chandler, Los Angeles Review of Books

“A masterful and overdue biography… meticulously researched and engagingly narrated.” —CHOICE

“[Haber's] biography is a masterpiece of sober and diligent scholarship.” —The Observer

“Thanks to Haber’s extremely meticulous research on Teffi’s encounters with Tolstoy, Rasputin, and others, English speakers can finally get a glimpse into a remarkable life.” —Meduza

From the Publisher

Penetrating and utterly captivating …by painstakingly reconstructing the life that gave rise to Teffi’s exquisite writings, Haber provides us with invaluable insight into the eternal struggles of exiles and émigrés.

Boris Dralyuk

Teffi was a Russian literary genius on a par with her more famous compatriots: she could be as penetrating as Chekhov, as darkly funny as Nabokov. She was by far the most amusing chronicler of the Russian revolution and the emigration to Paris, and indeed her insights into what it means to be a refugee couldn't be more relevant today. It's high time she joined the ranks of Russian greats, and Haber has brought her out wonderfully.

Peter Pomerantsev

Fascinating and compelling … A tremendous discovery.

William Boyd

Edythe Haber masterfully reconstructs the life of this remarkable woman writer who, on the one hand, contributed significantly to the rich, comic and satirical tradition in Russian associated with figures like Chekhov, Gogol and Zoshchenko but who, on the other hand, remained acutely aware of how the comedic mode was inherently fraught for a woman … Written with clarity and verve and handsomely illustrated, Haber's Teffi will appeal to scholars and general readers alike.

Jenifer Presto

The fruit of decades of careful scholarship – all the more valuable in view of Teffi’s extreme reticence about many aspects of her own life.

Robert Chandler

Edythe Haber's book is a labour of love; she has left no stone unturned in her quest to reconstruct Teffi’s story. The book combines sharp insights into Teffi’s many varied writings with a warm appreciation of the toughness of her life after she left Russia forever in 1919. It is a fascinating account and it will appeal to Teffi’s growing band of admirers, but it also speaks directly to a world where millions once again face the challenges and sorrows of lifelong exile from their homelands. Above all, it’s a very good read!

Catherine Merridale