Published in 1923, My Universities is the final instalment in the autobiographical trilogy by five-time Nobel Prize-nominee Maxim Gorky. Despite his failed attempts to enter the university at Kazan, Gorky forges an education of his own as he encounters an unusual array of characters - revolutionaries, religious fanatics, theological students and eccentric schoolteachers. Snatching cherished moments for reading books, a relief from the drudgery of his work in a bakery, Gorky comes to see the superficiality of a formal education. My Universities is a fascinating depiction of a young man trying to find his own way against the backdrop of a country in decay and close to revolution.
"With his skilled and polished voice, Nicholas Boulton does a splendid job narrating this final installment of Gorky's autobiographical trilogy, in which the protagonist forgoes a formal education and becomes a student of the world. Boulton also narrates the first two audiobooks in the trilogy, My Childhood and In the World. Maxim (or Maksim) Gorky was the nom de plume of Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, who became one of the leading authors in pre- and post-revolutionary Russia. Boulton's English accent is clear and superbly expressive in reading both narrative and dialogue. He ably affects various accents for individuals of different social classes, which adds to this production.
A superb narration of an important work of early-20th-century Russian literature."
