The Story of a Life

One of the great Russian autobiographies, as fresh now as the day it was written - and the day it was lived – Julian Barnes
Outstanding… A sparkling, supremely precious literary achievement * Telegraph *
The Story of a Life radiates a terrific vim and thirst for experience. A more gloriously life-affirming book is unlikely to emerge this year. – Ian Thompson * Spectator *
Beautifully translated, these volumes are a uniquely rich and moving account of events that continue to haunt us to this day – Mark Mazower * Financial Times *
A 20th-century masterpiece * Daily Telegraph, Summer Reads of 2022 *
A literary masterpiece…. This is not the cracker-barrel blandness of some professional sage, as so often in America’s ghost-written memoirs, but a wisdom of tragic insight and of hard-earned integrity * Saturday Review *

Konstantin Paustovsky was born in Moscow in 1892, but spent his childhood in Ukraine, being schooled at Kiev’s First Gymnasium. After serving as a paramedic in World War I Paustovsky worked as a journalist until he began to write the novels, short story collections and critical essays that would earn him his place as the most admired and respected figure among Russia’s contemporary writers. Paustovsky began work on his autobiography, The Story of a Life, in 1943, parts of which first appeared in English translation in 1964-four years before he died.

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