One of The Economist's 2011 Books of the Year


THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED--ABSURDLY MELANCHOLICALLY BEAUTIFULLY --TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS

No one who read Elif Batuman's first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. "Babel in California" told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel's last living relatives at the San...