Friedrich Gorenstein (1932–2002) stands as one of the most original and uncompromising voices in twentieth‑century Russian literature.
His novels blend fiction, philosophy, religion, and politics in a way that is unmistakably recognisable as Russian literature, yet he tackles these very same issues as a Jewish writer, a Jewish thinker, and a fiercely independent Jewish voice.
Long unavailable in English, Gorenstein now reaches Anglophone readers through Andrew Bromfield’s masterful translation of Psalm—his second major and most controversial novel. With an illuminating afterword by Marat Grinberg, one of the leading scholars of Gorenstein’s work, this publication is an event of considerable  cultural and literary significance.
Written in Moscow in the 1970s and first published in the West in 1986, Psalm is a bold metaphysical narrative told through five parables. Moving across Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia—from the Holodomor to World War II, the Holocaust, and the postwar antisemitic campaigns—the novel follows Dan, a Jew from the tribe of Dan and the executor of God’s will. As he travels through these landscapes, witnessing devastation, he sets a cosmic drama into motion, punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous.
Provocative, visionary, and deeply unsettling, Psalm invites readers into the heart of Gorenstein’s Russian‑Jewish imagination. It is a landmark work from the now bygone Soviet Jewish civilization—one that will challenge, inspire, and stay with its readers long after the final page.