A "Franco-Russian Literature" dialogue: Following Gide in re-reading the Tossian classics

"Basement Notes", "The Karamazov Brothers", "Crime and Punishment", "Demons", "Idiots"... The Russian writer Dostoevsky wrote many wonderful works during his lifetime. Lu Xun called him "the great interrogator of the human soul," and Nietzsche said, "Only Dostoevsky taught me a little bit of psychology."

The famous French writer and Nobel Prize winner André Gide (1869-1951) also highly admired Dostoevsky, and was one of the representatives of the Discovery, Research and High Evaluation of the Unique Charm of Russian Literature in the Western literary circles. Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of Dostoevsky's birth, the re-revision and publication of "Gide on Dostoevsky" is also of particular significance to Chinese readers who love Dostoevsky.

"Ji De on Dostoevsky", Guangxi Normal University Press, I Si Studio (French) and Andrei Ji De; translated by Shen Zhiming, November 2021 edition

From creation to thought and belief, Gide took Dostoevsky as his master and wrote many research articles on Dostoevsky. Gide on Dostoevsky contains Gide's essays on Dostoevsky and six famous lectures on Dostoevsky at the Old Loft Theatre between 1908 and 1921.

Gide not only read Dostoevsky's works, but also read several of his favorite works repeatedly. This kind of textual close-reading study is fully demonstrated in this book and sets an example for how we read the classics today.

Shen Zhiming, editor-in-chief and translator, is a French-Chinese scholar and professional translator, born in 1938, graduated from Shanghai Overseas Chinese College, and taught at Shanghai Overseas Chinese College and the French Department of Beijing Second Foreign Chinese College. He received his Ph.D. in French Literature in Paris in 1983 and his teaching qualification at a French university in 1992. His translations include "Wandering in the Dark Night", "Talking with Professor Y", "The Laurel Tree Has Been Cut Down: Selected Novels of the Pioneers of Stream of Consciousness", "The Age of Death", "The Place of Death", "The Writing Career", "Refuting St. Beauf", "A Love of Swan", "The Rebel", "Stranger", etc.; the editor-in-chief is "Aragonese Studies", "French Masters on Literature and Art Translation Series", "Sartre's Collected Works" and so on.

Shen Zhiming has studied both Dostoevsky and Gide, written a complete translator's preface, and thoughtfully excerpted the golden sentences of the book for the reader to put in front of the book; his timeless and elegant translation will continue to bring us into the world of classic writers.

Therefore, the book is not only an important literary historical document, but also a dialogue between two top writers and even French and Russian literature, and is an indispensable reference for the study of Dostoevsky and Gide.

It is reported that the French literary classic series "Pioneer Translation Series" produced by guangxi normal university press I Si Studio has published "Orphan's New Year's Gift: Rimbaud's Poetry Collection", "Flaubert Literary Brief", "Impression Aesthetics: Debussy on Music", "Laurel Tree Has Been Cut Down: Selected Novels of Stream of Consciousness Pioneers", "Swann's Love", "Talking with Professor Y" and other works.

Nandu reporter Zhu Rongting