{"title":"Alexandra Popoff","description":"Alexandra Popoff is a former Moscow journalist and Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow. She is the author of several literary biographies, including the award-winning Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century and Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography. She lives in Canada.","products":[{"product_id":"sophia-tolstoy-a-biography-paperback","title":"Sophia Tolstoy: A Biography - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs Leo Tolstoy's wife, Sophia Tolstoy experienced both glory and condemnation during their forty-eight-year marriage. She was admired as the muse and literary assistant to one of the world's most celebrated novelists. But when in later years Tolstoy became a towering public figure and founded a new brand of religion, she was scorned for her disagreements with him. And it is this version of Sophia--malicious, shrill, perennially at war with Tolstoy--that has gone down in the historical record. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawing on newly available archival material, including Sophia's unpublished memoir, Alexandra Popoff presents a dramatically different and accurate portrait of the woman and the marriage. This lively, well-researched biography demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Sophia was remarkably supportive of Tolstoy and was, in fact, key to his fame. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGifted and versatile, Sophia assisted Tolstoy during the writing of \u003ci\u003eWar and Peace \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAnna Karenina\u003c\/i\u003e. Having modeled his most memorable female characters on her, Tolstoy admired his wife's boundless energy, which he called \"the force of life.\" Sophia's letters, never before translated, illuminate the couple's true relationship and provide insights into Tolstoy's creative laboratory. Although long portrayed as an elitist and hysterical countess, Sophia was in reality a practical, independent-minded, generous, and talented woman who shared Tolstoy's important values and his capacity for work. Mother of thirteen, she participated in Tolstoy's causes and managed all business a airs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePopoff describes in haunting detail the intrusion into their marriage by Tolstoy's religious disciple Vladimir Chertkov, who controlled Tolstoy at the end of his life and led a smear campaign against Sophia, branding her evil and mad. She is still judged by Chertkov's false accounts, which dismissed her valuable achievements and contributions. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDuring his later religious phase, Tolstoy renounced his property and copyright, and Sophia had to become the breadwinner. She published Tolstoy's collected works and supported their large family. Despite the pressures of her demanding life, she realized her own talents as a writer, photographer, translator, and aspiring artist. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis vigorous, engrossing biography presents in fascinating depth and detail the many ways in which Sophia Tolstoy enriched the life and work of one of the world's most revered authors.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67940989894879,"sku":"9781416597605","price":26.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/aof5U9XRgN9781416597605.webp?v=1791417102"},{"product_id":"ayn-rand-writing-a-gospel-of-success-hardcover","title":"Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA deeply researched biography of the prominent and divisive writer Ayn Rand, whose pro-capitalist novels and nonfiction have influenced three generations of Americans\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Excellent and succinct.\"--Jim Kelly, \u003ci\u003eAir Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Biographer Alexandra Popoff traces the life and creative achievement of Ayn Rand (1905-1982), one of America's most provocative writers and whose best-selling novels \u003ci\u003eThe Fountainhead\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAtlas Shrugged\u003c\/i\u003e have enjoyed impressive longevity. Born into a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Rand (then Alisa Rosenbaum) lived through the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Civil War, and the onset of Soviet totalitarian dictatorships--experiences that made her profoundly anticommunist. When in 1926 Rand escaped from Stalinist Russia to realize her talent in America, she was also determined to expose the Communist system. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through her apprenticeship in Hollywood, where she worked as a scriptwriter, to her first anti-Communist novel, \u003ci\u003eWe the Living\u003c\/i\u003e, Rand doggedly pursued her goal, battling the Soviet belief system, along with its precepts of collectivism and statism. She defended American capitalism, individualism, prosperity, and creativity; her literary heroes were talented high achievers. While Marx had declared war on capitalism and prophesied the triumph of the proletariat, Rand, whose family was dispossessed by the Bolsheviks, glorified the wealth-creator and held the masses in contempt. In \u003ci\u003eAtlas Shrugged\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003e her most controversial novel, she promoted laissez-faire capitalism and the morality of rational self-interest. She envisaged apocalypse in America if it followed the socialist path.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67969980563679,"sku":"9780300253214","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/G3qMzxaWmU9780300253214.webp?v=1791788002"},{"product_id":"ayn-rand-writing-a-gospel-of-success-paperback","title":"Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA deeply researched biography of the prominent and divisive writer Ayn Rand, whose pro-capitalist novels and nonfiction have influenced three generations of Americans\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Excellent and succinct.\"--Jim Kelly, \u003ci\u003eAir Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Biographer Alexandra Popoff traces the life and creative achievement of Ayn Rand (1905-1982), one of America's most provocative writers and whose best-selling novels \u003ci\u003eThe Fountainhead\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eAtlas Shrugged\u003c\/i\u003e have enjoyed impressive longevity. Born into a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Rand (then Alisa Rosenbaum) lived through the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Civil War, and the onset of Soviet totalitarian dictatorships--experiences that made her profoundly anticommunist. When in 1926 Rand escaped from Stalinist Russia to realize her talent in America, she was also determined to expose the Communist system. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through her apprenticeship in Hollywood, where she worked as a scriptwriter, to her first anti-Communist novel, \u003ci\u003eWe the Living\u003c\/i\u003e, Rand doggedly pursued her goal, battling the Soviet belief system, along with its precepts of collectivism and statism. She defended American capitalism, individualism, prosperity, and creativity; her literary heroes were talented high achievers. While Marx had declared war on capitalism and prophesied the triumph of the proletariat, Rand, whose family was dispossessed by the Bolsheviks, glorified the wealth-creator and held the masses in contempt. In \u003ci\u003eAtlas Shrugged\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003e, \u003c\/i\u003e her most controversial novel, she promoted laissez-faire capitalism and the morality of rational self-interest. She envisaged apocalypse in America if it followed the socialist path.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":68057884295391,"sku":"9780300292251","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/o-uGUIE0TV9780300292251.webp?v=1792133475"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/alexandra-popoff.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}