Homeward from Heaven
A poignant exploration of love and existential angst
Boris Poplavsky author Bryan Karetnyk translator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Columbia University Press
Published:31st Aug '22
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This poignant novel explores love and existential angst among Russian expatriates in Paris, showcasing Boris Poplavsky's unique literary voice.
Written just before his untimely death, Homeward from Heaven is Boris Poplavsky’s poignant exploration of the lives of Russian expatriates in Paris and the French Riviera. The narrative follows Oleg, a complex protagonist whose romantic entanglements with two women, Tania and Katia, illuminate his internal struggles. Through Oleg’s eyes, readers witness the vibrant yet turbulent world of a bohemian lifestyle, where love, loss, and existential angst intertwine in a rich tapestry of experiences.
As Oleg navigates his relationships, his journey becomes one of spiritual awakening and self-discovery. After a brief affair with Tania, which ends in heartbreak, he seeks solace in the arms of Katia. Despite their physical connection, Oleg grapples with feelings of emptiness and longing for a deeper understanding of love. His encounters with both women serve as catalysts for his quest to reconcile the complexities of emotional and physical intimacy, leading him to profound realizations that are both enlightening and tragic.
Homeward from Heaven is regarded as a semiautobiographical work, reflecting Poplavsky’s own experiences and struggles. The novel is notable for its unflinching portrayal of sexuality and the hardships faced by émigrés. With its poetic and mystical prose, it blends psychological insight, philosophical inquiry, and social commentary, making it a significant contribution to modernist literature and a compelling meditation on the human condition.
[Poplavsky] was, after all, the first hippy, the original flower child. -- Vladimir Nabokov
In the work of Boris Poplavsky, spiritual quests founder on the jagged shoals of daily existence, a dreadful world-weariness is fused with the restless energy of youth. Only a translator as sensitive and as versatile as Bryan Karetnyk could have re-created the alarming, electrifying effect of Homeward from Heaven. Open the pages and feel the current beneath your fingers. -- Boris Dralyuk, translator of Isaac Babel, Mikhail Zoshchenko, and others
For Boris Poplavsky’s autobiographical hero—a rebellious decadent refugee in Paris of the 1930s—the fallout from catastrophic love affairs, described with graphic boldness, exuberance, and malicious joy, is indistinguishable from the trauma of exile from Russia. This is not a novel about exile. This is a unique verbal incarnation of the exiled spirit. -- Zinovy Zinik, author of History Thieves
This compelling novel, translated with literary flair, opens a fresh window on Russian literature beyond its well-known classics. Homeward from Heaven seamlessly blends Russian sensibilities with European modernity and Eastern spirituality. Saturated with mystical insights and intense passion, Poplavsky’s lyrical prose celebrates the evanescent beauty of every human experience. -- Maria Rubins, author of Russian Montparnasse: Transnational Writing in Interwar Paris
The book is compelling reading, with some beautifully lyrical writing, stream-of-consciousness prose sections and a most marvellous sense of place. -- Karen Langley * Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings *
Nearly a century after the novel’s composition, another wave of displacement from the former Russian empire demonstrates that Poplavsky’s tragic surrealist visions were all too real. With its forlorn peregrinations and portraits of lost exiles, Homeward from Heaven is very much a book for these times. -- José Vergara * Times Literary Supplement *
This impressive version of Homewards from Heaven is an important addition to the body of Russian émigré writing available in English. -- Peter France * Translation and Literature *
ISBN: 9780231199308
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
296 pages