The Life of Arseniev: Youth (Russian: Жизнь Арсеньева. Юность) is an autobiographical novel by Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Ivan Bunin seen by many as his most important work written in emigration. It is Bunin's only full-length novel.
The novel was written and published in parts in the course of the 12 years, in 1927-1939, in France. In 1952 the New-York-based Chekhov Publishers released the first complete edition of the novel.
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (/ˈbuːniːn/ BOO-neen or /ˈbuːnɪn/ BOO-nin; Russian: Ива́н Алексе́евич Бу́нин, IPA: [ɪˈvan ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbunʲɪn] ; 22 October [O.S. 10 October] 1870 – 8 November 1953) was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1933. He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is considered to be one of the richest in the language.
Best known for his short novels The Village (1910) and Dry Valley (1912), his autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1933, 1939), the book of short stories Dark Avenues (1946) and his 1917–1918 diary (Cursed Days, 1926), Bunin was a revered figure among white emigres, European critics, and many of his fellow writers, who viewed him as a true heir to the tradition of realism in Russian literature established by Tolstoy and Chekhov.
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