Red Cavalry

Isaac Babel · 1894–1940 · Russia / Ukraine

Originally Konarmiya (Russian)

Why it matters

The Polish-Soviet war compressed into brutal, jeweled miniatures, narrated by a bespectacled Jew riding with Cossacks. Babel's flint-hard prose finds horror and beauty in the same sentence.

At a glance

Compressed, elliptical vignettes demand attention despite their brevity and vivid imagery.