{"id":1277,"date":"2021-09-13T17:49:03","date_gmt":"2021-09-13T21:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dostoevskydev.wpengine.com\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2024-11-12T14:26:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T19:26:46","slug":"new-book-by-andrew-kaufman-the-gamblers-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/new-book-by-andrew-kaufman-the-gamblers-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"New book by Andrew Kaufman: The Gambler Wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, August 31, Andrew Kaufman’s latest book, THE GAMBLER WIFE: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky<\/a>, officially came out with Riverhead\/Penguin Random House. This is the first ever book-length treatment in English of Anna Grigorievna Dostoyevskaya, the second wife of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Below you’ll find a bit more about the book.<\/p>\n

The New York Times published this thoughtful review<\/a> of the book on the day it came out.<\/p>\n

BOOK DESCRIPTION<\/p>\n

A revelatory new portrait of the courageous woman who saved Dostoyevsky\u2019s life\u2014and became a pioneer in Russian literary history<\/p>\n

In the fall of 1866, a twenty-year-old stenographer named Anna Snitkina applied for a position with a writer she idolized: Fyodor Dostoyevsky. A self-described \u201cemancipated girl of the sixties,\u201d Snitkina had come of age during Russia\u2019s first feminist movement, and Dostoyevsky\u2014a notorious radical turned acclaimed novelist\u2014had impressed the young woman with his enlightened and visionary fiction. Yet in person she found the writer \u201cterribly unhappy, broken, tormented,\u201d weakened by epilepsy, and yoked to a ruinous gambling addiction. Alarmed by his condition, Anna became his trusted first reader and confidante, then his wife, and finally his business manager\u2014launching one of literature\u2019s most turbulent and fascinating marriages.<\/p>\n

The Gambler Wife offers a fresh and captivating portrait of Anna Dostoyevskaya, who reversed the novelist\u2019s freefall and cleared the way for two of the most notable careers in Russian letters\u2014her husband\u2019s and her own. Drawing on diaries, letters, and other little-known archival sources, Andrew Kaufman reveals how Anna warded off creditors, family members, and her greatest romantic rival, keeping the young family afloat through years of penury and exile. In a series of dramatic set pieces, we watch as she navigates the writer\u2019s self-destructive binges in the casinos of Europe\u2014even hazarding an audacious turn at roulette herself\u2014until his addiction is conquered. And, finally, we watch as Anna frees her husband from predatory contracts by founding her own publishing house, making Anna the first solo female publisher in Russian history.<\/p>\n

The result is a story that challenges ideas of empowerment, sacrifice, and female agency in nineteenth-century Russia\u2014and a welcome new appraisal of an indomitable woman whose legacy has been nearly lost to literary history.<\/p>\n

PRAISE FOR THE GAMBLER WIFE:
\n“Recounts Anna’s agony in scenes as gut-wrenching as any we might encounter in her husband’s novels.” \u2014New York Times Book Review<\/p>\n

\u201cFascinating [and] colorful . . . Kaufman successfully corrects biographical accounts that have \u2018erased\u2019 Snitkina\u2019s flair. Highly readable, this page-turning narrative will appeal to Dostoyevsky fans and literature-lovers in general.\u201d \u2014Publishers Weekly<\/p>\n

\u201cDeeply researched [and] informative . . . A fresh look at a spirited woman who played a significant role in literary history.\u201d \u2014Kirkus Reviews<\/p>\n

\u201cWith enlightening research and engaging prose, The Gambler Wife recounts the improbable and profoundly influential relationship that lay at the heart of Fyodor Dostoyevsky\u2019s literary enterprise: his marriage to Anna Snitkina. Hers is an inspiring, unexpectedly modern story of partnership, ambition, and achievement, and Andrew Kaufman tells it brilliantly.\u201d
\n\u2014Caroline Weber, author of Proust\u2019s Duchess<\/p>\n

\u201cDostoyevsky called her \u2018the little diamond,\u2019 and Anna Snitkina was just that\u2014at once brilliant and entrancing, yet rock-hard and indestructible. Andrew D. Kaufman\u2019s captivating book restores Anna to her rightful place and opens a window onto a dizzyingly complex relationship that helped to give us some of the world\u2019s greatest novels.\u201d
\n\u2014Douglas Smith, author of The Russian Job and Rasputin<\/p>\n

\u201cWith access to recently discovered sources, rich historical context, and deep psychological insight, Andrew Kaufman reveals Anna Dostoyevskaya as not only Fyodor Dostoyevsky\u2019s wife but also his editor and inspiration, critic and enabler\u2014an innovative publisher, pioneering feminist, and every bit as much a gambler as her husband. And The Gambler Wife, while rigorously grounded in the sources, itself reads like a Dostoyevsky novel.\u201d
\n\u2014William Mills Todd III, Professor of Literature Emeritus, Harvard University<\/p>\n

\u201cA riveting tale\u2014a true literary love story that defies and compels the imagination at once . . . A fine and formidable book.\u201d
\n\u2014Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and Borges and Me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, August 31, Andrew Kaufman’s latest book, THE GAMBLER WIFE: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky, officially came out with Riverhead\/Penguin Random House. This is the first ever book-length treatment in English of Anna Grigorievna Dostoyevskaya, the second wife of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Below you’ll find a bit more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freshly-published"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dostoevsky.org\/society\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}