Sevastopol Tales - Paperback

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by Leo Tolstoy (Author), Nicolas Pasternak Slater (Translator)

A stunning new translation of Tolstoy's immersive, inventive and masterfully ironic account of the Crimean War, and of the profound light that violence shines on human nature.

"[Tolstoy's] fiction changed the way human beings think about themselves." -- George Saunders

Crimea, 1854: residents in the besieged city of Sevastopol look out over a harbor punctured by the masts of scuttled ships, and taunt the French forces that keep them trapped behind defensive walls. So begins Leo Tolstoy's account of nine months of shelling, destruction, courage, vanity, glory and death.

Based on his own experiences as an artillery officer in the Crimean War, Tolstoy uses a kaleidoscopic range of narrative techniques to build up a picture of the conflict, wheeling from officer to soldier, cannon to barracks. The first tale, 'Sevastopol in December', takes us on a tour of the besieged city, where spirits are high, but defenses are crumbling. In 'Sevastopol in May' we enter the fray with a group of officers, some honorable and brave, some foolish, vain and shallowly preoccupied with status - and some all of these at once. 'Sevastopol in August' brings the story to a close, following the fates of two brothers in the final battle for the city.

Communicated in prose marked by vivid sensation and profound irony, Tolstoy's questions - about the nature of truth and heroism, and about why we choose to pay the high human price of conflict - are as relevant as ever.

Author Biography

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born into the Russian aristocracy, spent his youth in aimless dissolution, and joined the army to escape his gambling debts. Sevastopol Tales helped to establish his fame as a writer in the 1850s. The war transformed him into a passionate pacifist and social agitator. He started schools for the recently emancipated serfs of Russia, and published a number of masterpieces, most famously the long novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Living in retirement on his ancestral estate, he became a near-messianic figure, both lauded and persecuted by the Russian authorities. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prizes in Literature and Peace, but never won.

Nicolas Pasternak Slater is the nephew of novelist Boris Pasternak. After retiring from his career as a doctor he turned to translation, and has published several highly praised versions of great Russian authors, including Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Chekhov.

Number of Pages: 208

Dimensions: 0.8 x 7.73 x 5.05 IN

Publication Date: April 28, 2026