Orlando Figes, The New York Review of Books

The English-speaking world is indebted to these two magnificent translators for revealing more of its hidden riches than any who have tried to translated the book before.” Pevear and Volokhonsky’s new translation gives us new access to the spirit and order of the book.” brings us the palpability as perhaps never before. Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World offers an opportunity to see this great classic afresh, to approach it not as a monument but rather as a deeply touching story about our contradictory human hearts.” And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving-and human-figures in world literature.

War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.Ī s Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds-peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers-as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read From the award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov comes this magnificent new translation of Tolstoy’s masterwork.

War and peace pevear and volokhonsky