A Hero of Our Time - Paperback

by Mikhail Lermontov (Author), Marian Schwartz (Translator), Gary Shteyngart (Introduction by)

In its adventurous happenings-its abductions, duels, and sexual intrigues-A Hero of Our Time looks backward to the tales of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron, so beloved by Russian society in the 1820s and '30s. In the character of its protagonist, Pechorin-the archetypal Russian antihero-Lermontov's novel looks forward to the subsequent glories of a Russian literature that it helped, in great measure, to make possible.

Front Jacket

Introduction by Timothy Binyon Translated by Vladimir and Dmitri Nabokov

"From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

MIKHAIL LERMONTOV was born in Moscow in 1814. Influential as a poet, novelist, and visual artist, Lermontov died in 1941 at the age of 26.

VLADIMIR NABOKOV was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1899. After studying French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, he launched his literary career in Berlin and Paris. In 1940 he moved to the United States, here he achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. Lolita, arguably his most famous novel, was first published, by the Olympia Press, Paris, on September 15, 1955, and became a controversial success. Nabokov died in Montreux Switzerland in 1977.