The Gospel in Brief

"Tolstoy's Gospel in Brief virtually kept me alive. If you are not acquainted with it, then you cannot imagine what an effect it can have upon a person." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The Gospel in Brief lives at the center of Leo Tolstoy's thinking about the meaning of life. In this absorbing volume -- beautifully translated by Dustin Condren -- the greatest of Russian authors revisits the Gospels with characteristic boldness, pushing through to the fiery core of Christianity. Although little known, this book remains hugely important." -- Jay Parini, author of The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year

"Dustin Condren captures, in this fresh idiomatic translation, the dazzlingly audacious achievement of The Gospel in Brief, Tolstoy's daring synthesis the New Testament accounts of Jesus." -- Edward E. Ericson, Jr., editor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader

"A fascinating and thoroughly unorthodox rewriting of the Gospels and restatement of Christianity." -- Booklist

"This is the first English translation in more than a century; Condren worked from Tolstoy's original version and restored material deleted in previous translations. The result is not unlike Hermann Hesse's 'Siddhartha' -- the story of a life that illustrates a path." -- Los Angeles Times

"Newly translated by Dustin Condren, Tolstoy's Gospel in Brief offers us a Jesus stripped of the overlay of Christian dogma and ancient metaphysics: his Jesus confronts readers with a real challenge and a call to change their lives." -- George Pattison, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, University of Oxford, and canon of Christ Church Cathedral

"A fresh translation destined to introduce a new generation to a fuller understanding of Tolstoy's mind." -- Kirkus Reviews