We’re pleased to announce these March releases from NYRB Classics: Vladimir Sorokin’s thrilling apocalyptic epic, Ice Trilogy, now translated in its entirety for the first time; Tove Jansson’s beautiful novel, Fair Play, in an award-winning translation; and J. R. Ackerley’s We Think the World of You, released in an edition that restores the previously expurgated text.
For a limited time, these March titles, as well as all NYRB Classics by Tove Jansson, Vladimir Sorokin, and J. R. Ackerley, are available at 25% off.
Ice Trilogy
By Vladimir SorokinTranslated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell
From one of Russia’s boldest and most infamous contemporary authors, now in its first English translation, comes an exhilarating, apocalyptic epic, an exemplary illustration of Sorokin’s singular prose style and sense for modern myth.
Beginning with Bro, Ice Trilogy follows the surreal and destructive journey of ‘the brotherhood’—a severe and severely conflicted group of idealists who are seeking to return to their origins in pure light. Their goal: global destruction. The middle section, Ice, serves as the central episode of Sorokin’s trilogy. In the last, gripping section, 23,000, Sorokin wields an unfettered narrative of suspense as he brings his readers to the brink of the brotherhood’s ultimate fate. To say the least, Sorokin’s harrowing vision of the future is sure to remain a classic of dystopic fiction for many years to come.
Fair Play
By Tove Jansson
Introduction by Ali Smith
Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal
Fair Play follows the life and love of two unforgettable women as they travel, argue, live, and create side by side in a friendship that celebrates truly caring for and respecting a fellow human being.
Mari and Jonna are creators—one of drawing and film, the other of stories—and they share a tender, unique friendship bound together as much by their art as by life itself. Jansson’s Fair Play transports us into their world as they critique each other’s work, summer on an island off the Finnish coast, travel to Arizona, and, in a particularly memorable vignette, get lost in an unforgiving fog on a boat.
Both thoughtful and liberating, Jansson’s delicate exploration of Mari and Jonna’s relationship, which reflects Jansson’s own relationship with lifelong partner and artist Tuulikki Pietilä, is an inspiring tribute to the author’s belief in “work and love.” From start to finish, Fair Play never fails to compel and delight.
We Think the World of You
By J. R. Ackerley
Introduction by P. N. Furbank
Described by Ackerley himself as “a fairy tale for adults,” We Think the World of You combines acute social realism and dark fantasy.
Frank, Ackerley’s narrator, is a smart, self-righteous civil servant who has just hit middle-age; he is angry, acerbic and lonely. And he has just fallen for his neighbor, Johnny, a handsome, young married man with a wife, children, and a German shepherd named Evie. When the carefree Johnny is arrested for petty theft, Frank is forced to fight Johnny’s family for access to the prison in which his beloved is incarcerated. Frank’s struggle to stay connected to Johnny spirals out into a fantastical and often hilarious tale of star-crossed love, social misunderstandings, and the true meaning of caring for another.