My Childhood (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
1926. Maxim Gorky, pseudonym of Alexei Maksimovich Peshkov, Soviet novelist, playwright and essayist, who was a founder of social realism. Although known principally as a writer, he was closely associated with the tumultuous revolutionary period of his own country. My Childhood, the first volume of Gorky's autobiographical trilogy, was in part an act of exorcism. It describes a life begun in the raw, remembered with extraordinary charm and poignancy and without bitterness. Of all Gorky's books this is the one that made him the father of Russian literature. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
The first book of an autobiographical trilogy by Maksim Gorky, published in Russian in 1913-14 as Detstvo. It was also translated into English as Childhood. Like the volumes of autobiography that were to follow, My Childhood examines the author's experiences by means of individual portraits and descriptions of events. He reveals that his mother was mostly absent after the death of his father and that his upbringing was in the hands of his brutal grandfather. He also creates a compelling portrait of his unlearned but loving grandmother. Leaving home at age 12, the young Gorky learns self-reliance and begins to educate himself by reading. The subsequent autobiographical volumes are V lyudyakh (1915-16; In the World; also published as My Apprenticeship) and Moi universitety (1923; My Universities; also published as My University Days). Considered to constitute one of the finest Russian autobiographies, the books reveal Gorky to be an acute observer with great descriptive powers.
My Childhood (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics),Maxim Gorky,Ronald Wilks,Penguin Classics,0140182853,Fiction,Literary,Literature - Classics / Criticism,Biography: general,Cooking / Culinary Arts & Techniques,Literary studies: 19th century,Novels, other prose & writers: 19th century,Russian
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