Les Nuits blanches

White Nights is, first of all, a genuine love story. A solitary, romantic young man meets, one night, in a deserted Petersburg, a weeping young girl. Despairing over heartbreak, Nastenka gives herself over to the young man's fantasy; he, in love from the very first moment, lulls her, and lulls himself, in the illusion of a budding flame…

André Markowicz's new translation draws a striking stylistic effect from this novel. Discordant, ironic, the voice one hears here is indeed that of the great Russian writer, who never stopped fighting, throughout his life, in the name of truth, against deceptive elegance, whether of words or of feelings.