Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel, better known as Isaac Babel, was a Soviet journalist and writer of Jewish origin. Despite being an idealistic advocate of Marxism and Leninism, he was arrested, tortured, and executed during Stalin's Great Purge. "The Odessa Stories" a collection published in 1931, is a selection of beautiful stories by Babel whose narratives take place in the city of Odessa. Babel describes, among other stories, the life of the fictional Jewish mafia boss, Benya Krik, one of the great anti-heroes of Russian literature, and his gang in the Moldavanka ghetto during the time of the October Revolution.
Isaac Babel is a master of conciseness. This characteristic was emphasized by the writer himself when he once declared that while Tolstoy could narrate minute by minute everything that happened to him throughout a day, he preferred to focus on the five most interesting minutes. It is a fact that Isaac Babel's narratives are profoundly interesting. An excellent and captivating read.
