Publication of this exacting new translation of Tolstoy's great Anna signifies a literary event of the first magnitude

Tolstoy produced many drafts of Anna Karenina. Crafting and recrafting each sentence with careful intent, he was anything but casual in his use of language. His project, translator Marian Schwartz observes, "was to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions." In her magnificent new translation, Schwartz embraces Tolstoy's unusual style--she is the first English language translator ever to do so. Previous...