Red Cavalry

Red Cavalry

<p>"Amazing not only as literature but as biography."—Richard Bernstein, <em>The New York Times</em></p><br /><p>One of the great masterpieces of Russian literature, the <em>Red Cavalry</em> cycle retains today the shocking freshness that made Babel's reputation when the stories were first published in the 1920s. Using his own experiences as a journalist and propagandist with the Red Army during the war against Poland, Babel brings to life an astonishing cast of characters from the exuberant, violent era of early Soviet history: commissars and colonels, Cossacks and peasants, and among them the bespectacled, Jewish writer/intellectual, observing it all and trying to establish his role in the new Russia.</p><br /><p>Drawn from the acclaimed, award-winning <em>Complete Works of Isaac Babel</em>, this volume includes all of the <em>Red Cavalry</em> cycle; Babel's 1920 diary, from which the material for the fiction was drawn; and his preliminary sketches for the stories—the whole constituting a fascinating picture of a great writer turning life into art.</p>