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Envy, a novel by Yuri Olesha
Rights sold / Published by (rights may be available): Czech Republic - Melantrich, Svět Sovětů, Denmark - Akademisk Boghandel, France - Fayard, L'Age d'Homme, Hungary - Európa, Germany – Suhrkamp, Greece - Antipodes, Italy - Roma, Einaudi, Carbonio Editore, Israel - Keter, Latvia - Literatūras Kombains, Netherlands - Van Oorschot, Poland - Państwowy In-t Wydawniczy, Spain - Acantilado, Turkey - Kırmızı Kedi, Merkez Kitaplar, English - Norton, New York Review Books Classics
The central of Olesha's famous novel is the fate of the intelligentsia in Russia’s postrevolutionary society. Olesha’s obvious enthusiasm for the new state of affairs did not hinder him from seeing and conveying to the reader the dramatic clash between the rational industrial state and the creative aspirations of Nikolay Kavalerov, one of the main characters in the novel. This clash is also echoed in Kavalerov himself: he has talent and creative potential, but he throws it away. Envy is one of a number of 20th-century Russian novels in which the protagonists clash with Soviet reality and as a result find themselves marginalized.
In his best novel Envy, all wry humor and narrowed eyes, Olesha presents two sides of the same coin: a self-satisfied sausage king and a drunken failure the former picks up in the street. Poetic and satiric and quite an achievement, it is a novel everyone should read.” —Flavorwire
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