On Life

"This first annotated translation of an 1886 work from Tolstoy marks a significant achievement in studies of the author... Though clearly aimed at Tolstoy scholars, this critical edition will be of interest to anyone attracted to Tolstoy’s unique brand of spirituality." —Publishers Weekly

“This welcome translation of Tolstoy’s striking meditation on life and mortality is illuminated by the editor’s superb introduction that traces the fate of this controversial work, while situating it in the broader context of Tolstoy’s lifelong confrontation of death, the mystery of life, and the paradox of necessity and freedom.” —Victor Brombert, author of Musings on Mortality: From Tolstoy to Primo Levi
 

"Tolstoy is fifty-eight years old, newly recovered from a near-fatal injury. In the face of Darwinists, positivists, the new science of psychology, and the venerable teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church, he defines life:  the overcoming of pessimism by a proper understanding of part to whole, which will make us worthy of happiness. At the time, Tolstoy's radical ethics was likened to Nietzsche's. This lucid and poetic translation, meticulously annotated and introduced, restores this astonishing text to its controversial nineteenth-century context and recommends it to our own." —Caryl Emerson, author of The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Literature

"This new translation has two advantages over all the others. First, it is done jointly by a native speaker of Russian . . . and of English . . . who both pay close attention to Tolstoi's language and render it as consistently as possible. Secondly, Medzhibovskaya's annotations are extraordinarily helpful in guiding the reader through the subtleties of Tolstoi's terminology—the different words he uses for reason or love, for instance, or his varying use of pronouns (I, we, they)—and also in situating Tolstoi's thought within the cultural context of the time." —Donna Orwin, Slavonic & East European Review