To read Babel is to experience the wild and often terrifying swings of Russian history."--BOOK JACKET.

Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and yet to be free of them. This duality

Presents the collected short stories of a master of the form, along with his letters, plays, diaries, and screenplays.

Hailed as the first great Soviet writer, Isaac Babel was at once a product and a victim of violent revolution. In tales of Cossack marauders and flashy Odessa g