Overview

It is 1918 in Moscow. The communist revolution is in full swing. Food is scarce, living conditions harsh. Two women meet on the stage of an empty theater. One is the now famous twenty-six-year-old poet Maria Tsvetaeva, the other the twenty-four-year-old actress Sonia Holliday (Sonechka). The Story of Sonechka, written almost twenty years later, is a vivid account, at once comic and tragic, of their love for each other. A previously untranslated masterpiece (Dmitry Bikov calls it ""one of the five best books in world literature""), it stands as a testament to the artistry with which Tsvetaeva wrote prose; the vicissitudes of her life, love, and work; and the intense dynamics of Moscow culture in the wake of the Revolution. It also constitutes an exceedingly rare and early example of queer prose literature originally written in Russian.

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""Marina Tsvetaeva, one of the most acclaimed Russian twentieth-century poets and autobiographers, is well-known for the passionate and lyrical intensity of her poetry, plays and prose. This first translation of  Tsvetaeva's The Story of Sonechka (1936)  is a welcome contribution to the ongoing project  of making Tsvetaeva's œuvre available to English speakers that has been undertaken by several contemporary translators.  Fishbeyn's and  Reeve's admirable and  praiseworthy translation of Tsvetaeva's masterpiece, written in Russian and in French, captures the spirit and the uniqueness of Tsvetaeva's mode of writing. The Story of Sonechka sheds light on  the construction of Tsvetaeva's creative identity during the early years of the Soviet regime.  Tsvetaeva's engagement with the actors from Yevgeny Vakhtangov's Third Studio of the Moscow  Art Theatre inspired her early plays featuring Casanova, and developed her profound understanding of poetic theatre and commedia dell'arte that Vakhtangov used for his imaginative realism mode of artistic expression. The story is a homage to the avant-garde principles of theatricality and self-reinvention as strongly advocated by Nikolai Evreinov, whose notion of the theatricality of everyday life unlocks many semantic layers in The Story of Sonechka.” — Alexandra Smith, University of Edinburgh

Author Information

Marina Tsvetaeva (18921941) was a prominent Russian poet known for her passionate, innovative style and exploration of themes like love, exile, and human resilience. She lived through the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and World Wars, enduring personal tragedies, including poverty, political persecution, and the loss of a child. Despite her untimely death, Tsvetaeva's work remains a cornerstone of Russian literature, celebrated for its emotional depth and lyrical brilliance. Inessa Fishbeyn is an independent writer and translator of Russian literature, born and educated in Kazan, Russia. David Reeve is DKE Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he specializes in ancient Greek philosophy and has translated many of the works of Plato and Aristotle and written books, commentaries, and essays on them.

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