Another Life is an intriguing story about a woman suddenly and prematurely widowed who attempts to grasp firmly the memory of her brilliant, erratic husband, and to understand and come to terms with the life they had together. Although the story is told from the viewpoint of Olga, it becomes clear that the author's sympathies lie with the deceased husband, who, while not a success in a society where intrigue and moral compromise are the norm, possessed a passion for the truth and an appreciation for the manner in which the past affects the present.

The House on the Embankment switches among a first-person narrator, a third-person narration about a figure with whom the narrator shared childhood experiences, and then an omniscient authorial voice. A sharp, satirical portrait of an academic opportunist, the book is paradoxically laced with compassion and humor. Beyond their acute depiction of life in the Soviet Union, these novellas offer an extraordinarily rich literary encounter in the tradition of great nineteenth-century Russian writing.

YURI TRIFONOV (1925-1981) is widely regarded as a major Russian writer of his generation. His literary career started early--he was published at twenty-two, and his novel Students won the 1951 Stalin Prize--but he spent much of the Thaw under Khrushchev in the state archives seeking to rehabilitate the memory of his father, who disappeared in the Great Purge of 1937 and was expunged from Party history. In the 1960s he began the series of works--"The Exchange," Taking Stock, The Long Goodbye, Another Life, and The House on the Embankment--that brought him both attack and admiration in the Soviet Union, as well as an international reputation as an artist of the first rank. His Disappearance and Old Man are also available from Northwestern University Press.

MICHAEL GLENNY is a widely published author, editor, and translator. Among his translated works are Vladimir Nabokov's Mary: A Novel and numerous books by Mikhail Bulgakov, including the Everyman library edition of The Master and Margarita.