'This world in which we have so much difficulty living is filled with misunderstanding at every level.' What can one man do, faced with such a world? Daniel Stein, Interpreter explores the lives of those affected by some of the worst conflicts of the twentieth century, from survivors of the ghetto and escapes of Soviet oppression to those caught up in the violence of the Arab-Israeli conflict. All of them have one thing in common: their lives are touched by Daniel Stein. Stein is a Polish Jew, who miraculously survives the Holocaust by working for the Gestapo as an interpreter. After the war, he converts to Catholicism, becomes a priest, enters the Order of Barefoot Carmelites, and emigrates to Israel. Despite this seemingly impossible progression, the life and destiny of Daniel Stein are not an invention – the character is based on the life of Oswald Rufeisen, the real Brother Daniel. Feeling his life has saved in the war for a reason, Stein dedicates himself to bringing understanding and reconciliation to a violent world, in his own compassionate and irreverent way. In an age of increasing mistrust between faiths, Daniel Stein, Interpreter serves as a timely and nuanced exploration of what it might mean to really try to understand each other. Staggering in scope, Daniel Stein, Interpreter is already seen by many as the great Russian novel of our time. Winner of the Russian National Literary Prize and the Prix Simone de Beauvoir, Ludmila Ulitskaya has earned accolades abroad for this courageous work, at last available in English. 'A feat of love and tolerance.' The Washington Post 'Ludmila Ulitskaya arrives here not just as a shrewd novelist, but as a wise and evocative artist.' The Philadelphia Inquirer 'A fascinating work . . . Achieves the height of virtuosity.' Le Monde

This epic biographical novel based on true events shares a “moving depiction of how Holocaust survivors struggle to rebuild their lives” (Historical Novel Society). This innovative novel tells the story of Daniel Stein, a Polish Jew who narrowly survives the Holocaust by working for the Gestapo as an interpreter. Meanwhile, he secretly helps hundreds of Jews escape the ghetto. After the war, he converts to Catholicism, becomes a priest, and finally emigrates to Israel. Despite this seemingly far-fetched progression, the life of Daniel Stein is not an invention—he is based on a real person, Oswald Rufeisen, a Carmelite priest. Daniel Stein, Interpreter ranges from before World War II to modern times, and from the shtetl to Israel to America. It portrays a life full of amazing contradictions and undaunted faith.

August 1991. In a sweltering New York City apartment, a group of Russian émigrés gathers round the deathbed of an artist named Alik, a charismatic character beloved by them all, especially the women who take turns nursing him as he fades from this world. Their reminiscences of the dying man and of their lives in Russia are punctuated by debates and squabbles: Whom did Alik love most? Should he be baptized before he dies, as his alcoholic wife, Nina, desperately wishes, or be reconciled to the faith of his birth by a rabbi who happens to be on hand? And what will be the meaning for them of the Yeltsin putsch, which is happening across the world in their long-lost Moscow but also right before their eyes on CNN? This marvelous group of individuals inhabits the first novel by Ludmila Ulitskaya to be published in English, a book that was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize and has been praised wherever translated editions have appeared. Simultaneously funny and sad, lyrical in its Russian sorrow and devastatingly keen in its observation of character, The Funeral Party introduces to our shores a wonderful writer who captures, wryly and tenderly, our complex thoughts and emotions confronting life and death, love and loss, homeland and exile.

“The Big Green Tent, for all its grand ambition, manages an intimacy that can leave a reader reeling . . . a masterpiece.” ―Colin Dwyer, NPR With epic breadth and intimate detail, Ludmila Ulitskaya’s remarkable novel tells the story of three school friends who meet in Moscow in the 1950s and go on to embody the heroism, folly, compromise, and hope of the Soviet dissident experience. These three boys—an orphaned poet; a gifted pianist; and a budding photographer with a talent for collecting secrets—struggle to reach adulthood in a society where their heroes have been censored and exiled. Rich with love stories, intrigue, and a cast of dissenters and spies, The Big Green Tent offers a panoramic survey of life after Stalin and a dramatic investigation into the prospects for individual integrity in a society defined by the KGB. Each of the central characters seeks to transcend an oppressive regime through art, literature, and activism. And each of them ends up face-to-face with a secret police that is highly skilled at fomenting paranoia, division, and self-betrayal. Ludmila Ulitskaya’s novel is a revelation of life in dark times. “As grand, solid and impressively all-encompassing as the title implies . . . Ulitskaya's readers will find it hard not to imagine themselves in her characters' place, to ponder what choices we'd make in similar situations.” ―Lara Vapnyar, The New York Times Book Review “A gripping tale.” ―Leonid Bershidsky, The Atlantic “Compelling, addictive reading.” ―Masha Gessen, The New Yorker “[Ulitskaya] writes page-turners that just happen to be monumentally important.” ―Boris Kachka, New York magazine “Worthy of shelving alongside Doctor Zhivago: memorable and moving.” ―Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Medea Georgievna Sinoply Mendez is an iconic figure in her Crimean village, the last remaining pure-blooded Greek in a family that has lived on that coast for centuries. Childless Medea is the touchstone of a large family, which gathers each spring and summer at her home. There are her nieces (sexy Nike and shy Masha), her nephew Georgii (who shares Medea’s devotion to the Crimea), and their friends. In this single summer, the languor of love will permeate the Crimean air, hearts will be broken, and old memories will float to consciousness, allowing us to experience not only the shifting currents of erotic attraction and competition, but also the dramatic saga of this family amid the forces of dislocation, war, and upheaval of twentieth-century Russian life.

The Los Angeles Times said of Ludmila Ulitskaya’s The Funeral Party, “In America we have friends, family, lovers, and parents–four kinds of love. Could it really be that in Russia they have more? Ludmila Ulitskaya makes it seem so.” In Sonechka: A Novella and Stories, Ulitskaya brings us tales of these other loves in her richly lyrical prose, populated with captivating and unusual characters. In “Queen of Spades,” Anna, a successful ophthalmologic surgeon in her sixties; her daughter, Katya; and Katya’s teenage daughter and young son live in constant terror of Anna’s mother, a domineering, autocratic, aging former beauty queen. In “Angel,” a closeted middle-aged professor marries an uneducated charwoman for love of her young son, raising the child in his image. In “The Orlov-Sokolovs,” perfectly matched young lovers are pulled apart by the Soviet academic bureaucracy. And in the stunning novella “Sonechka,” the heroine, a bookworm turned muse turned mother, reveals a love and loyalty at once astounding in its generosity and grotesque in its pathos. In these stories, love and life are lived under the radar of oppression, in want of material comfort, in obeisance to or matter-of-fact rejection of the pervasive restrictions of Soviet rule. If living well is the best revenge, then Ludmila Ulitskaya’s characters, in choosing to embrace the unique gifts that their lives bring them, are small heroes of the quotidian, their stories as funny and tender as they are brilliantly told.

Novelist Ludmila Ulitskaya is a best-selling and critically lauded Russian writer who champions the values of liberalism and tolerance and critiques Putin's policies. This is the first English-language book about this important writer, placing her in the shifting landscape of post-Soviet society and culture.