"Sevastopol Sketches (Sebastopol Sketches)" is a collection of three works of historical fiction in which Tolstoy draws upon his real life experiences during the Siege of Sevastopol. The titular location draws its name from that of a city in Crimea and takes place during the Crimean war. The three tales in this collection are respectively titled "Sevastopol in December", "Sevastopol in May", and "Sevastopol in August". In the December tale Tolstoy introduces us to Sevastopol by giving the reader a tour and introducing us to the settings, mannerisms, and background that would relevant in the following tales. In the May tale Tolstoy examines the senselessness of war, musings that would lay the foundation for his much larger work and magnum opus "War and Peace." In the third and final tale the fall of the town is detailed. Published in 1855 "Sevastopol" was written near the beginning of the author's literary career. It is a book in which we begin to see the writer exhibit a quality of prose that would one day establish him as the greatest of all writers in the Russian and any other language.

Three subtly connected stories converge in this chimerical debut, showcasing a powerful new Brazilian voice Three subtly connected stories converge in this chimerical debut, each burrowing into a turning point in a person’s life: a young woman gives a melancholy account of her obsession with climbing Mount Everest; a Peruvian-Brazilian vanishes into the forest after staying in a musty, semi-abandoned inn in the haunted depths of the Brazilian countryside; a young playwright embarks on the production of a play about the city of Sevastopol and a Russian painter portraying Crimean War soldiers. Inspired by Tolstoy’s The Sevastopol Sketches, Emilio Fraia masterfully weaves together these stories of yearning and loss, obsession and madness, failure and the desire to persist, in a restrained manner reminiscent of Anton Chekhov, Roberto Bolano, and Rachel Cusk.

In the Sevastopol Sketches, Leo Tolstoy evocatively recollects his experiences at the Siege of Sevastopol in 1854-1855, over the course of three short stories. Although the trio of tales which comprise the Sevastopol Sketches are ostensibly fictional and written in the second person, they accurately recall Tolstoy's experiences as a young man witnessing the Crimean War. All three possess philosophical overtones, with the overarching theme being a vilification of war as a wasteful, senseless and foolish expenditure of human life. The Sevastopol Sketches establish Tolstoy as a pacifist who considered war to be one of the most depraved and lamentable events characterizing mankind. Years after publishing these sketches, Tolstoy would draw upon the Siege of Sevastopol as a critical supplement to the narrative of his epic novel - War and Peace.

Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Sevastopol Sketches’ is a series of three semi-autobiographical short stories which are based on his own recollections and experiences of the Crimean War. As a young artillery officer, Tolstoy was present at Sevastopol – the city under intense siege during the war, and his experiences of the grim situation are retold here in gruesome detail. The horrors and realities of war are laid bare as Tolstoy contrasts the heroism of soldiers with the futility of war. Undoubtedly an influence for his later epic ‘War and Peace’, ‘Sevastopol Sketches’ is an important novel in the timeline of Tolstoy’s work. Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author, widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest novelists. His most famous novels include the epic ‘War and Peace’ and the tragic ‘Anna Karenina’. His work also includes several short stories and a semi-autobiographical trilogy which included his own recollections of the Crimean War in ‘Sevastopol Sketches’. He had a spiritual awakening in the 1870s, and became an ardent pacifist, incorporating this into his work ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’ which is said to have had a profound impact on the non-violent resistance of Mahatma Gandhi. Contemporaries and admirers of his work included Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekhov, and Gustave Flaubert. Tolstoy died in 1910 aged 82, leaving behind an incredible literary legacy.

Tolstoy wrote the three Sebastopol sketches after serving as an officer in the Russian army during the Crimean War. When in the winter of 1854 he arranged to be transferred to the besieged town of Sebastopol, Tolstoy was spurred on by a fierce patriotism, but also an equally fierce desire to alert the authorities to appalling conditions in the army. He recreates in the "December," "May" and "August" sketches what happened during different phases of the siege, unprecedentedly bringing home to Russia's entire literate public the atrocities of war. Thus, because of the Sketches, Tolstoy has been called the first war correspondent; in terms of his career, they heralded his arrival as a literary celebrity.

Reproduction of the original: Sevastopol by Leo Tolstoi