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A Hero of Our Time
A Hero of Our Time
Aug 11, 2025 6:13 PM

Author:Mikhail Lermontov,Natasha Randall

A Hero of Our Time

A masterpiece of Russian prose, Mikhail Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time is translated with an introduction and notes by Natasha Randall, and a foreword by Neil LaBute, author of reasons to be pretty, in Penguin Modern Classics.

The first major Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time was both lauded and reviled on publication. Its Byronic hero, twenty-five-year-old Pechorin, is a beautiful and magnetic but nihilistic young army officer, bored by life and indifferent to his many sexual conquests. In five linked episodes, Lermontov builds up a portrait of a man caught in and expressing the sickness of his times. Chronicling his unforgettable adventures in the Caucasus involving brigands, smugglers, soldiers, rivals, and lovers, this classic tale of alienation influenced Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Anton Chekhov, holding up a mirror not only to Lermontov's time but also to our own.

Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41) was a Russian Romantic writer and poet. As a young man Lermontov was an officer in the guards, and was sent to fight in the Caucasus after insulting the Tsar. His dramatic life ended after being shot down in a duel.

Ifyou enjoyed A Hero of Our Time, you might like Andrei Bely's Petersburg, also available in Penguin Clasics.

'One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper'

Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

Reviews

A powerful reverie...the city is so vivid to the eye that it is the real hero of the book.

—— New Statesman

One of those few emancipated Soviet writers who firmly believe-and still believe-that to create is to choose

—— Saturday Review

Worth reading in any language

—— Library Journal

The White Guard captures the tumult, madness and confusion of revolution

—— Independent

[A] promising extension of Glass's already impressive range

—— Kirkus Reviews

An engaging and intelligent page-turner

—— Publishers Weekly

Glass is a wisely questioning, ardent, and artful novelist

—— Booklist

Nowhere are the ebbs and flows, the complex and often ugly nuances, the bonds and breaks between sisters more achingly or more piercingly explored.

—— USA Today

One doesn't read so much as sink into a Julia Glass novel, lulled into an escapist reverie by her mastery . . .

—— People Magazine

A sometimes stinging, always affecting tale of siblings who can't quite make it as friends

—— Marie Claire

The voices of bookish Louisa and bold Clem - sisters 'as different as white chocolate and seaweed' - alternate in Glass's wrenching tale as the strong-willed sibs cope with love, loss and each other.

—— Good Housekeeping

Glass writes with a bracing emotional and intellectual intensity, and . . . so accurately depicts the complexities of the sororal bond that it's no surprise to find that she hails from a sisterhood of two as well.

—— Elle

A lovely and heartbreaking book . . . Julia Glass writes the sort of novels you wish would go on forever; such is your immediate attachment to her impeccably drawn characters . . . [she] offers up intimate examinations of the lives on complex people, recognizable for their insecurities and strengths, failings and successes, humor and sadness, loves and loves lost.

—— Miami Herald

An arresting story that is both thorny and complex ... A wonderful novelist will expose truths that elude us in the everyday. [Glass's] eye in I See You Everywhere takes in blind spots and makes them mesmerizing

—— New York Daily News

Julia Glass is a writer firmly in control

—— Dallas Morning News

Glass elegantly captures what it means to be an independent and spirited contemporary woman

—— Chicago Tribune

Beautifully written

—— Image Magazine

It is expertly written in its way, and oddly compelling - like a slushy movie you can't help but respond to

—— Guardian

Moving and thoughtful ... Poignant and compelling, this lyrical novel lifts the veil on an internal world of love, rivalry and misunderstanding; an intricate depiction of sibling relationships

—— Good Book Guide

A beautifully evocative and intelligent novel

—— Woman & Home

This impassioned tale is a gripping read

—— James Smart , The Guardian

Jones is fabulous...offering titbits of danger and discord, yet keeping a cool matter-of-fact tone for the big horrors

—— Sunday Times

Her second novel is a must-read; a devastating, brilliant account of what happens when everything a man believes in...begins to crumble

—— Cath Kidson Magazine

Full of danger and discord

—— Sunday Times Summer Reading
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