Ilya Ilf (1897–1937) and Evgeny Petrov (1903–1942) were the
pseudonyms of Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg and Evgeny Petrovich
Katayev, a pair of Soviet writers who met in Moscow in the 1920s
while working on the staff of a newspaper that was distributed to
railway workers. The foremost comic novelists of the early Soviet
Union (invariably referred to as Ilf & Petrov), the pair
collaborated together for a dozen years, writing two of the most
revered and loved Russian novels, The Twelve Chairs and The Golden
Calf, as well as various humorous pieces for Pravda and other
magazines. Their collaboration came to an end following the death
of Ilya Ilf in 1937he had contracted tuberculosis while the pair
was traveling the United States researching the book that
eventually became Little Golden America.
Konstantin Gurevich is a graduate of Moscow State University and
the University of Texas at Austin. He translates with his wife,
Helen Anderson. Both are librarians at the University of
Rochester.
Helen Anderson studied Russian language and literature at McGill
University in Montréal. She translates with her husband, Konstantin
Gurevich.
"On the heels of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin
Wall comes a new translation of one of the most beloved and
quotable Russian classicsThe Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny
Petrov. This is the first version based on the complete and
uncensored original, which was first serialized in 1931, and,
unlike the two very truncated incarnations that came before,
finally illuminates in full comedic and insightful glory the work
of the writing duo from Odessa (pen names for Ilya Faynzilberg and
Evgeny Kataev), whose iconic status in Russian literature is akin
to that of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in the U.S."Kseniya Melnik,
The Brooklyn Rail
"Ilf and Petrov's picaresque is packed with intricacies that resist
summary. The authors exploit every character and complication to
its fullest humor, in a wild tale driven in large part by Bender's
rapid-fire language."By Nicole Rudick, Los Angeles Times
"The Golden Calf was translated into English shortly after its
first serialisation in 1931, and then again in the early sixties.
This new translation is the first English version to have gone to
print unexpurgated. Translators Konstantin Gurevich and Helen
Anderson have delivered a text full of glib energies and stylistic
verve. While choosing to forego some of the language-based humour
in the original text, Anderson and Gurevich show equal sensitivity
to the novel's satirical mirroring of a new model society's hubris,
and to its evocative vignettes of Socialist Russia."Nick Terrell,
The Ember
"War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and Doctor Zhivago weigh so
heavily on Russian literature than many readers don't realize that
there are some truly hilarious Russian novels. This classic
picturesque is one of them."K.H.Cuminskey, Library Journal
"For students and scholars who studied Russian literature in the
three decades of so before the collapse of communism, the works of
Ilf and Petrov are remembered fondly not so much for their artistic
viability as for their comic relief from the grim and grimy fiction
in the early years of Soviet power." Thomas Gaiton Marullo,
University of Notre Dame
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