Summer in Baden-Baden

Summer in Baden-Baden, a lost masterpiece and one of the major achievements of Russian literature in the second half of the 20th century, has been praised by The New York Review of Books as "a short poetic masterpiece" and by Donald Fanger in The Los Angeles Times as "gripping, mysterious, and profoundly moving." This complex and highly original novel features a double narrative, set in both wintertime late December, and mid-April 1867.

In the "now" of wintertime, a narrator named Tsypkin is on a train bound for Leningrad. Meanwhile, in mid-April 1867, the newly married Dostoyevskys, Fyodor and Anna Grigor'yevna, are embarking on a four-year trip to Germany. Unlike J.M. Coetzee's The Master of St. Petersburg, this is not a Dostoyevsky fantasy, nor is it a docu-novel. The author was obsessed with accuracy, ensuring that everything was portrayed authentically while also allowing room for creativity.

The novel delves into Dostoyevsky's passionate nature, from his love for gambling and his literary calling to his deep affection for his wife. Anna's all-forgiving love mirrors the adoration of literature's disciple, Leonid Tsypkin, for Dostoyevsky. Susan Sontag, in a remarkable introductory essay published in The New Yorker, describes the miraculous survival of Summer in Baden-Baden and celebrates its publication in America. She sheds light on Tsypkin's tumultuous life and the exquisite pleasures found within his remarkable novel.

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