Donald Trump presents a problem for writers. His political success led to calls for artists to confront authoritarianism and bigotry directly in their work. “Many writers would argue that all fiction ...

THE other night I picked up, quite by accident, Tolstoy’s story “The Master and the Worker” in German translation, and having started reading it, I could not stop until I reached the end. I had read ...

This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit the full collection for book lists, guest essays and more seasonal distractions. “Evil has become a heroic act,” declared Dmitry Muratov, a ...

FIFTY years ago, Leo Tolstoy lay dying in the stationmaster’s house at Astapovo, a tiny railroad siding in the center of Russia. One of his children bent down to catch the almost inaudible last words ...

Special to The New York Times. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print ...