In the Editor's Laboratory. The Living and the Dead Word

This collection includes two books about the Russian language, the significance and uniqueness of which remain unparalleled even decades after their publication. "In the Editor's Laboratory" (1960) is one of the main books dedicated to the purity and richness of... the Russian language. In her book, the outstanding writer, critic, and literary scholar Lydia Chukovskaya shares her experience working in the legendary Detgiz editorial office. According to the author, "this book is not a textbook on editing. I do not set educational tasks for myself, and it is hardly possible for any textbook to contribute to mastering the art to any degree. The task of the book is different: I simply wanted to understand the experience accumulated by me and my closest colleagues, to gather and generalize it, to introduce the reader to the range of thoughts, concerns, and questions that I encountered during three decades of literary work." Nora Gal is an outstanding translator of English and French literature, whose works ("The Little Prince" by Saint-Exupéry, "The Stranger" by Camus, "To Kill a Mockingbird..." by Harper Lee, and many others) have long been part of the treasure trove of domestic literature. Her main theoretical work, "The Living and the Dead Word," is dedicated to artistic translation and represents the quintessence of the author's experience as an editor and translator. The author brilliantly and humorously plays with the richest material gathered over more than half a century of work with texts, defending and preserving one of the most important treasures of our culture—the purity of the Russian language.