Overview

The first English-language translation of an eccentric, unclassifiable classic An unnamed narrator embarks on a rambling journey across the diverse borderlands of the Russian and Ottoman Empires - all without leaving his divan. Drawing on his own experiences in Bessarabia during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, A. F. Veltman describes our Romantic narrator poring over a map and traversing distant, contested regions - at once imperial backwaters and cosmopolitan crossroads - where Romanians, Ruthenians, Jews, Bulgarians, Germans, and Turks comingle. Meandering and motley in form and language, this lost classic of the early nineteenth century deploys metafictional innovations that anticipate postmodernist literature. The novel is speckled with dictionary entries, multiplication tables, philosophical digressions, and love poetry as Veltman swings from Gothic horror to antiquarian commentary to burlesque comedy. Past, present, and fantasy blend together, as Alexander the Great, Ovid, and Augustus join the narrator on his daydreamed journey of self-discovery. Hugely popular in its day, The Wanderer is a remarkable tale that depicts the extraordinary places and peoples that met along the fault lines of once-great empires.

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9780810149045

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Reviews

""Veltman's work presents an enormous challenge to any translator, and Stephen A. Bruce has done a magnificent job. The translation is accurate and stylistically compelling in English, and the annotations are astounding in their thoroughness. This edition represents a monumental work of scholarship."" - Susanne Fusso, Wesleyan University ""We are fortunate to have Stephen A. Bruce's lucid translation of The Wanderer. Veltman's text, widely read in its day, represents a crucial moment in the development of Russian prose. It will be of great interest to those studying and teaching travel literature, Bessarabia, the Romantic period, Orientalism, regional writing, and the evolution of narrative forms."" - Anne L. Lounsbery, New York University

Author Information

Alexander Fomich Veltman (1800 - 1870) was a popular and influential writer in his own time whose experimental works range from prose to poetry and realism to fantasy, including time-travel fiction. He was a friend of Pushkin, and his novels were praised by both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. His Selected Stories are also published by Northwestern University Press. Stephen A. Bruce is an associate professor of Russian translation at the Defense Language Institute.

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