To the Editor:
With particular pleasure I read Isaak Babel’s “The Awakening” in your February issue. .I think it is a beautiful story and, as far as I can judge, beautifully rendered.
For many years it has been my opinion that the two outstanding Soviet Russian story-tellers are Yuriy Tynyanov and Isaak Babel. .I am sure it is by sheer coincidence—without any particular significance—that both these writers are Jews, and that both died during World War II. .I had the pleasure of meeting both these men a long time ago in Berlin and Paris, and I have a most vivid impression of their engaging and charming personalities.
It is gratifying that you should reintroduce the great Russian author, Isaak Babel, to the American public.
Hermann Kesten
New York City
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