Discover one of Twentieth-Century Russia's most lauded lost classics, now in a remarkable new translation.

'Outstanding... A sparkling, supremely precious literary achievement' Telegraph

'One of the great Russian autobiographies, as fresh now as the day it was written - and the day it was lived' Julian Barnes

In 1943, Konstantin Paustovsky, the Soviet Union's most revered author, started out on his masterwork - The Story of a Life; a grand, novelistic memoir of a life lived on the fast-unfurling frontiers of Russian history. Eventually published over six volumes, it would cement Paustovsky's reputation as the voice of Russia around the world, and see him nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Taking its reader from Paustovsky's Ukrainian youth, struggling with a family on the verge of collapse and the first flourishes of creative ambition, to his experiences working as a paramedic on Russia's frontlines and then as a journalist covering the country's violent spiral into revolution, The Story of a Life offers a portrait of an artistic journey like no other.

Translated by: Douglas Smith
Introduction by: Douglas Smith