Happiness by Yuri Felsen Event with Bryan Karetnyk in conversation with Sarah Gear - Thursday 30th April 2026

Join us in the bookshop to hear Bryan Karetnyk in conversation with Sarah Gear about Happiness by Yuri Felsen.

6.30pm on Thursday 30th April at Golden Hare Books, 68 St Stephen Street, EH3 5AQ.

Buy a copy of Happiness and receive free entry to the event, or choose our Ticket-Only option for £6 (which can be used towards a purchase of the book at the event).

Happiness is due to be published on 12th March, so any pre-ordered copies will be sent out/made available to collect on or just after that date.

We will send an email to confirm your booking - please be sure to check your junk/spam folder!

About Happiness and Yuri Felsen Happiness is the second part of Yuri Felsen’s The Recurrence of Things Past trilogy, following the critically acclaimed Deceit. Both subtle and profound in its exploration of love, art, literature, and human frailty, Felsen’s trilogy traces the tormented romance of its protagonist alongside his artistic evolution, standing at the forefront of aesthetic and philosophical currents in European modernism.

Yuri Felsen was the pseudonym of Nikolai Freudenstein. Born in St Petersburg in 1894, he emigrated in the wake of the Russian Revolution, first to Riga and then to Berlin, before finally settling in Paris in 1923. In France, he became one of the leading writers of his generation, alongside the likes of Vladimir Nabokov; influenced by the great modernists such as Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, his writing stood at the forefront of aesthetic and philosophical currents in European literature. Following the German occupation of France at the height of his career, Felsen tried to escape to Switzerland; however, he was caught, arrested and interned in Drancy concentration camp. He was deported in 1943 and killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

About Bryan Karetnyk Bryan Karetnyk is a British writer and translator. His recent translations include major works by Gaito Gazdanov, Irina Odoevtseva and Boris Poplavsky. He is also the editor of the landmark Penguin Classics anthology Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky.

About Sarah Gear Sarah Gear teaches Russian language and literature at the University of St Andrews. She researches contemporary Russian fiction and translation, and her forthcoming book, Translating Novels from Putin's Russia, explores how political bias shapes the publication and reception of contemporary Russophone literature abroad. Sarah is also Assistant Interview Editor for the international literary translation journal Asymptote, and her reviews and interviews have appeared there, as well as in the Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Modern Language Review, Full Stop, the Glasgow Review of Books, and Rights in Russia.