A millionaire is killed. A golden statuette of a Buddha goes missing. A penniless student, who is afflicted by dream-like fits, is arrested and accused of murder.

In typically crisp, unfussy prose, Gazdanov's delicately balanced novel is an irresistibly hypnotic masterpiece from one of Russia's most talented émigré writers. Slipping between the menacing dream world of the student's fevered imagination, and the dark back alleys of the Paris underworld, The Buddha Returns is part detective novel, part philosophical thriller, and part love story.

"[A] deliciously dark and complex tale concerning mistaken identities, moral ambiguities and deep-set yearnings. . . fresh and exciting . . . the protagonist’s metaphysical pondering and recurring mental fogs are curiously gripping, and his wistful reminiscences of old flame Catherine turn the novel into a sensual as well as a cerebral affair." — The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"This is an excellent novel by any standard, and especially remarkable for joining the philosophical underpinnings of the Russians with the intrigue of a French thriller." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)


"Eccentric... exciting... an offbeat appeal and flashes of black humour." — Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

"The Gazdanov revival… is nothing short of a literary event… comparisons to Lermontov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, Celine and Camus… are entirely apt: few authors are able so seamlessly to wed the styles and thematic concerns of the great Russian psychological novelists with those of the French modernists and existentialists… Gazdanov’s thrillers offer a truly original vision, distinguished by profound existential and metaphysical concerns, a peculiar sense of humour, and enchanting prose, which Bryan Karetnyk has once again reproduced with impeccable grace." — Boris Dralyuk, The Times Literary Supplement (UK)

"While Gazdanov seems in thrall to these vastly different novelists, he has his own utterly distinctive voice... vivid sensory detail... transcends the mid-20th-century émigré tradition, and poses prescient questions about the fracturing of identity... deftly translated... Pushkin Press is to be congratulated on reviving an author who is as relevant now as ever. Both these fine novels [The Spectre of Alexander Wolf and The Buddha's Return] offer gripping detective drama, while also engaging with questions of consciousness and self that cannot be resolved by simply foiling a killer." The Spectator (UK)

Gaito Gazdanov (Georgi Ivanovich Gazdanov, 1903-1971) was the son of a forester. Born in St Petersburg and brought up in Siberia and Ukraine, he joined Baron Wrangel's White Army in 1919 aged just sixteen, and fought in the Russian Civil War until the Army's evacuation from the Krimea in 1920. After a brief sojourn in Gallipoli and Contantinople (where he completed secondary school), he moved to Paris, where he spent eight years variously working as a docker, washing locomotives, and in the Citroën factory. During periods of unemployment, he slept on park benches or in the Métro. In 1928, he became a taxi driver, working nights, which enabled him to write and to attend lectures at the Sorbonne during the day. His first stories began appearing in 1926, in Russian émigré periodicals, and he soon became part of the literary scene. In 1929 he published An Evening with Claire, which was acclaimed by, among others, Maxim Gorki and the great critic Vladislav Khodasevich. He died in Munich in 1971, and is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris. View titles by Gaito Gazdanov

About

A millionaire is killed. A golden statuette of a Buddha goes missing. A penniless student, who is afflicted by dream-like fits, is arrested and accused of murder.

In typically crisp, unfussy prose, Gazdanov's delicately balanced novel is an irresistibly hypnotic masterpiece from one of Russia's most talented émigré writers. Slipping between the menacing dream world of the student's fevered imagination, and the dark back alleys of the Paris underworld, The Buddha Returns is part detective novel, part philosophical thriller, and part love story.

Reviews

"[A] deliciously dark and complex tale concerning mistaken identities, moral ambiguities and deep-set yearnings. . . fresh and exciting . . . the protagonist’s metaphysical pondering and recurring mental fogs are curiously gripping, and his wistful reminiscences of old flame Catherine turn the novel into a sensual as well as a cerebral affair." — The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"This is an excellent novel by any standard, and especially remarkable for joining the philosophical underpinnings of the Russians with the intrigue of a French thriller." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)


"Eccentric... exciting... an offbeat appeal and flashes of black humour." — Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

"The Gazdanov revival… is nothing short of a literary event… comparisons to Lermontov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, Celine and Camus… are entirely apt: few authors are able so seamlessly to wed the styles and thematic concerns of the great Russian psychological novelists with those of the French modernists and existentialists… Gazdanov’s thrillers offer a truly original vision, distinguished by profound existential and metaphysical concerns, a peculiar sense of humour, and enchanting prose, which Bryan Karetnyk has once again reproduced with impeccable grace." — Boris Dralyuk, The Times Literary Supplement (UK)

"While Gazdanov seems in thrall to these vastly different novelists, he has his own utterly distinctive voice... vivid sensory detail... transcends the mid-20th-century émigré tradition, and poses prescient questions about the fracturing of identity... deftly translated... Pushkin Press is to be congratulated on reviving an author who is as relevant now as ever. Both these fine novels [The Spectre of Alexander Wolf and The Buddha's Return] offer gripping detective drama, while also engaging with questions of consciousness and self that cannot be resolved by simply foiling a killer." The Spectator (UK)

Author

Gaito Gazdanov (Georgi Ivanovich Gazdanov, 1903-1971) was the son of a forester. Born in St Petersburg and brought up in Siberia and Ukraine, he joined Baron Wrangel's White Army in 1919 aged just sixteen, and fought in the Russian Civil War until the Army's evacuation from the Krimea in 1920. After a brief sojourn in Gallipoli and Contantinople (where he completed secondary school), he moved to Paris, where he spent eight years variously working as a docker, washing locomotives, and in the Citroën factory. During periods of unemployment, he slept on park benches or in the Métro. In 1928, he became a taxi driver, working nights, which enabled him to write and to attend lectures at the Sorbonne during the day. His first stories began appearing in 1926, in Russian émigré periodicals, and he soon became part of the literary scene. In 1929 he published An Evening with Claire, which was acclaimed by, among others, Maxim Gorki and the great critic Vladislav Khodasevich. He died in Munich in 1971, and is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris. View titles by Gaito Gazdanov