The Laestrygonians

A cycle of essays “Listregnons” devoted to working people—fishermen of the Black Sea. The prototypes of these essay-stories are real people (even their names are unchanged), with whom the writer became friends during his visits to Balaklava (here he often stayed beginning in 1904).

These people are simple and not complicated, but they are endowed with the courage, kindness, and breadth that Kuprin always highly valued in a person. That’s why the story about them sometimes turns into a lyrical, inspired poem: “Oh, dear simple people, brave hearts, naive primitive souls, strong bodies, swept by salty sea wind, calloused hands, sharp eyes that have looked into the face of death so many times—in even its very pupils!”…