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Memoirs of Sofia Tolstaya among the 100 best books published in 2010
OTTAWA, December 3, 2010 — My Life, written by Sofia Tolstaya and published by the University of Ottawa Press (UOP), has been selected by The Globe and Mail as one of the 100 best books published in 2010.
My Life, the only existing account of Leo Tolstoy’s private life, as recounted by his wife, Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya, is one of three books released by a university press that made the list of the top 100 non-fiction compiled by the newspaper (the others from Yale University and the University of California).
Hidden for a century, the previously unpublished memoirs not only provide insight into the life and work of Leo Tolstoy but also highlight Tolstaya's accomplishments as an author in her own right as well as her work as an artist, musician, photographer and businesswoman, rare in the male-dominated world of the time. Guests in her home ranged from peasants to princes, from anarchists to artists, from composers to philosophers. Her descriptions of these personalities read as a chronicle of her times, painting a unique portrait of late 19th-century and early 20th-century Russia.
The book was edited by Andrew Donskov, director of the University of Ottawa’s Slavic Research Group and a professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. It was translated from Russian by John Woodsworth and Arkadi Klioutchanski, members of the Slavic Research Group.
UOP, the publishing house of the University of Ottawa, was founded in 1936. It is Canada's oldest French-language university press and the only fully bilingual university press in North America. UOP publishes in both official languages and is committed to bilingualism and multiculturalism.
