Odessa Stories

This recording includes Isaac Babel’s famous stories. A Russian writer, journalist, and playwright, Babel united them through the central character Benya Krik — a noble Odessa gangster who, alongside Ostap Bender, became one of the legendary figures of modern literature.

The stories are set in the legendary Moldavanka district of Odessa, where the writer was born and raised. For a long time this outskirts district was home to thieves, raiders, and smugglers, whom Babel, with the brilliant mastery of a psychologist and storyteller, depicts in birth, death, love, and contempt for danger. The low and the lofty, the carnal and the spiritual exist inseparably in this prose, like life itself, described in vivid and succulent language.