Alexander Kuprin

A searing indictment of the darkest side of decadent Russian culture in the twilight of the Tsars, by the last of the great pre-Soviet realist writers. Ahead of its time in the frank depiction of prostitution and exploitation of women, this gritty and dramatic novel ranks with the works of such eminent realists as Émile Zola in France, or George Gissing in England.

Yama (The Pit)

Aleksandr Kuprin

A novel about prostitution in Moscow. From the introduction: It must not be thought, despite its locale, that Kuprin's "Yama" is a picture of Russian prostitution solely; it is intrinsically universal. All that is necessary is to change the kopecks into cents, pennies, sous or pfennings; compute the versts into miles or metres; Jennka may be Eugenie or Jeannette; and for Yama, simply read Whitechapel, Montmartre, or the Barbary Coast. That is why "Yama" is a "tremendous, staggering, and truthful book- a terrific book." It has been called notorious, lurid- even oleographic. So are, perhaps, the picaresques of Murillo, the pictorial satires of Hogarth, the bizarreries of Goya...

Yama (The Pit)

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