This is another excellent release in the NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies... a nuanced and enlightening book written in clear, jargon-free prose.
~Choice
This highly important book provides a new understanding of what the author calls the provincial trope in Russian literature.The book has significant implications for history as well as literary criticism.
~The Russian Review
The book's scope is one of its strongest qualities: Lounsbery goes beyond Gogol' and Chekhov and includes a range of other writers' uses of the provincial trope. The result is a fascinating and exhaustive analysis of the symbolic geography of Russian nineteenth-century literature.
~Slavonic and East European Review
This book does a rare thing: it takes a topic that all readers of nineteenth-century Russian literature think they understand, provintsiia, and demonstrates that this apparently selfevident construct, associated with boredom and meaninglessness, is multifaceted, vibrant, and significant. In so doing, Life is Elsewhere genuinely transforms our understanding of nineteenth-century Russian literature and culture.
~Canadian Slavonic Papers
Life Is Elsewhere is a striking example of a successful thematic approach to literary analysis. At the same time, it is a bold re-evaluation of overlooked themes and texts in Russian literature, lending itself both to classroom discussion and to the rediscovery of individual writers in new contexts.
~Modern Language Review
This is a magisterial book, generous in its wealth of information and citations, theoretically informed, thorough, and beautifully written.Lounsbery has proven that the Russian provinces are in fact deeply interesting, both as a foil and as a broader vehicle for helping us grapple with challenges of Russian identity and Russia's place both in the canon of world literature and geopolitically in the world.
~Slavic Review
