The Tattered Cloak and Other Novels, by Nina Berberova

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The Tattered Cloak and Other Novels

by Nina Berberova

Translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz

Knopf, 1991; paperback ed. Vintage, 1992; New Directions Classic, 2001 (paper).

A New York Times Notable Book of 1991

First published in Europe in the 1930s and 40s, these searing, evocative stories by the late Russian expatriate writer Nina Berberova (1901-1993) are portraits of the lives of Russian exiles in Paris on the eve of World War II. The protagonists range from housekeepers and waiters to shabby-genteel aristocrats and intellectuals––but all are united in a haunting displacement from their pasts, and all share a troubling uncertainty about the future.

PRAISE FOR THE TRANSLATION

"Her fiction, originally published in Europe from the late 1930's to the 1950's, has recently been reissued in France and Britain; now, in a graceful translation by Marian Schwartz, more of it is appearing in America." -- Penelope Lively, New York Times

REVIEWS

Haunting...as graceful and subtle as Chekhov. --Anne Tyler, New Republic

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