Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov

· Penguin UK
5.0
1 review
Ebook
496
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

'She turned into a frog, into a lizard, into all kinds of other reptiles and then into a spindle'

In these tales, young women go on long and difficult quests, wicked stepmothers turn children into geese and tsars ask dangerous riddles, with help or hindrance from magical dolls, cannibal witches, talking skulls, stolen wives, and brothers disguised as wise birds. Half the tales here are true oral tales, collected by folklorists during the last two centuries, while the others are reworkings of oral tales by four great Russian writers: Alexander Pushkin, Nadezhda Teffi, Pavel Bazhov and Andrey Platonov.

In his introduction to these new translations, Robert Chandler writes about the primitive magic inherent in these tales and the taboos around them, while in the afterword, Sibelan Forrester discusses the witch Baba Yaga. This edition also includes an appendix, bibliography and notes.

Translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler
With Sibelan Forrester, Anna Gunin and Olga Meerson

Ratings and reviews

5.0
1 review

About the author

Elizabeth Chandler is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler, of Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter and several works by Andrey Platonov and Vasily Grossman.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.