RACCONTI DI PIETROBURGO | I EDIZ. 1984 | NIKOLAJ GOGOL | T. LANDOLFI

Racconti di Pietroburgo is a collection of short stories by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, translated by Tommaso Landolfi. The stories are set in early-19th-century St. Petersburg and are infused with satire, grotesque realism, and penetrating social critique. Through seemingly ordinary characters—bureaucrats, small clerks, barbers, the lonely or deluded—Gogol unveils the absurdity, alienation, and hypocrisy inherent in urban life. The city itself functions as a character: a façade of opulence masking decay, a stage for dreams thwarted, identities distorted. Landolfi’s translation marries fidelity to Gogol’s tonal shifts—from comic to eerie to tragic—with a rich, idiosyncratic Italian voice, preserving the dark humor and existential undercurrents that make these stories timeless.