Boyd Tonkin at The Independent has given my translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard a short but very sweet review:
Marian Schwartz's pacey and compelling new translation of this most unstuffy classic captures a wonderful chronicle of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath as a colourful, absurd and even merry cocktail of nightmare and farce.
For the Turbin clan and their mixed fortunes, Bulgakov drew semi-autobiographically on his Kiev relatives (you can still visit their home). Comedy, terror and a matchless sense of intimacy with a warm family ripped apart by history drive White Guard.
The Turbins and their beloved city suffer revolving-door coups until, at last, fate shows its hand and an armoured train pulls in with the "vibrant red star" of Mars (and Lenin) in a winter sky.
The graphics used on this site were inspired by the work of Liubov Popova (1889-1924), a Russian artist and designer influenced by Constructivism and Futurism, as seen in her biography, by D.V. Sarabianov and N.L. Adaskina, Liubov Popova, translated by Marian Schwartz and published by Harry N. Abrams in 1990.