Literary St. Petersburg

This magnificent city, one of the most beautiful in the world, is undergoing a renaissance as Vladimir Putin focuses attention on his hometown, most notably by commissioning architect Norman Foster to convert an island in the middle of the city into a spectacular $378 million arts center with concert halls, a five star hotel, art gallery, and outdoor ampitheatre. All of a sudden, Petersburg is the destination city for the glitterati: Elton John played for 100 guests at the Catherine Palace; Valentino arrived to celebrate his birthday there with Stella McCartney and Gwyneth Paltrow. Much of Russian literature is St. Petersburg literature: set in St. Petersburg, about St. Petersburg, or written by writers living in St. Petersburg. This guide focuses on writers' residences, museums, buildings, monuments, and settings described in great works of literature. For each author there is a biographical sketch focusing on the writer's relationship to the city and what the city was like at that time, a sense of the writer's work, and the literary and social circles in which she or she moved. The profiles are followed by sites associated with the writers. With crisp details, vivid writing, and striking quotes about the city--as well as neighborhood maps--the book will be manageable for tourists as well as armchair readers. The lives of these authors are in most cases as dramatic as the stories they tell--settings range from the palaces to labor camps; characters include czars and revolutionaries; the chapters filled with persecution and starvation set against the most tumultuous of histories. The photographs and paintings of the authors and the city are particular striking. They includea newspaper photo taken inside the courtroom where the young Joseph Brodsky, on trial for "a world view damaging to the state" made his electrifying defense of his credentials as a poet: "I think that it's from God; " a family portrait of the glamorous poet Anna Akhmatova,