Both the
original parts and the last revised edition have been followed in
this translation. The greater part of the stories listed above are
available in translations, under various titles; the list, of
course, is merely a handful from the vast bulk of the fecund
Kuprin's writings, nor is any group of titles exhaustive of its
kind. "The Star of Solomon," his latest collection of stories,
bears the imprint of Helsingfors, 1920.
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...
The best introduction to "Yama," however, can be given in Kuprin's
own words, as uttered by the reporter Platonov.
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