Audiobooks narrated by Expatriate

Written in 1915, The Shadow-Line is based upon events and experiences from twenty-seven years earlier to which Conrad returned obsessively in his fiction. A young sea captain's first command brings with it a succession of crises: his sea is becalmed, the crew laid low by fever, and his deranged first mate is convinced that the ship is haunted by the malignant spirit of a previous captain. This is indeed a work full of 'sudden passions,' in which Conrad is able to show how the full intensity of existence can be experienced by the man who, in the words of the older Captain Giles, is prepared to 'stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience.' A subtle and penetrating analysis of the nature of manhood, The Shadow-Line investigates varieties of masculinity and desire in a subtext that counters the tale's seemingly conventional surface.

Joseph Conrad (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Little Eyolf

Hedda Gabler has just returned from her honeymoon. She has married out of ennui, and is already heartily sick of her husband, who is a plodding, pedantic academic. Upon moving into her new Christiania home, she soon discovers that Thea Elvsted, an old schoolmate whom she always envied and despised, has boldly left her marriage in order to be with Eilert Lövborg, a former lover of Hedda who is trying to overcome a past life of debauchery and alcoholism by creating a revolutionary new work of philosophy and returning to respectability. Another old flame, Judge Brack, tries to wheedle his way back into Hedda's life by any means possible. Yearning to exercise power over someone, anyone, to "mould a human destiny," Hedda begins callously to manipulate the people around her to devastating effect. Written at the height of Ibsen's mature period, this play has endured as one of the most-performed and most powerful of all Ibsen's works. Hedda is both perpetrator and victim, a psychologically-complex, frustrated woman trying to assert some control over her world. Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century. Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality.

Henrik Ibsen (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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The Master Builder

Halvard Solness is a master architect who has ruthlessly forged a preëminent career without regard for the feelings of those around him. In spite of this unscrupulous path of life, his conscience is still painfully alive, burdening him with guilt for past choices. He lives a tormented existence, fearful not only that he is going mad but also that he has unconsciously been in league with demonic powers in order to reach his present status. His long-suffering wife and his mistress try to deal with him in his fragile state while not being destroyed themselves. Into this fraught situation suddenly arrives the dangerous Hilda Wangel, an eldritch young woman claiming a special relationship with Solness from his past. One of the five great plays of Ibsen's final period, "The Master Builder" is laden with layers of symbolic significance. Like most Ibsen works, it begins quietly with dialogue between quite ordinary people and only gradually reveals its depths of meaning and power.

Henrik Ibsen (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Hedda Gabler

One of the four profound plays of Ibsen's late period (along with "The Master Builder," "John Gabriel Borkman," and "When We Dead Awaken"), "Little Eyolf" tells the story of Albert Allmers, a writer who has yearned to leave behind a literary or philosophical legacy of some kind, but who finally decides to invest that yearning in the life of his little handicapped son, Eyolf. Rita Allmers loves her husband so obsessively that she hates any rival for his affection, whether it be Allmer's literary magnum opus, Little Eyolf himself, or Albert's strangely devoted sister Asta. Little Eyolf's tragic death, possibly orchestrated by the eldritch old Rat-Wife, brings about a psychological climax among the three adults, as they reveal to each other deep conflicts of love and hate, complex erotic desires, raw honesty about their emotional emptiness in the face of human tragedy, and the realization that all that really matters to any one of them is Life itself. The famous H. L. Mencken heads a team effort committed to the colloquial, lucid rendition of this alternative translation. Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century. Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality.

Henrik Ibsen (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

Audiobook

Brand

Inflamed by what he saw as his Norwegian homeland's shocking betrayal of Denmark after the Prussian invasion of Danish territory, Ibsen wrote "Brand" as an indictment of human complacency and rigidity of mind. Composing this "dramatic poem" from his self-imposed exile in Italy, Ibsen had long agonized over the stodgy provincialism of his countrymen, but the abandonment of Denmark took on the dimensions in his imagination of a human tragedy far surpassing his own personal experiences. Brand is a priest who refuses to compromise, at the cost of great suffering to others, and who lives by unrealizable ideals. The play revolves around a cast of remarkable characters, such as Gerd the mad peasant girl with delusions of God; Ejnar the complacent artist; and Agnes the devoted lover. Ibsen's breakthrough work, "Brand" could be seen as the true beginning of Ibsen's career, and although (or because?) it was at the time the most fiercely-debated work of literature in Scandinavian history, it always remained one of the playwright's favorite productions. The true genius of the work lies in the judicious balance of its indictment of philistine complacency and its warning against intolerant zealotry. The ambiguous character of Brand himself, principled and heroic while flawed, was seen by Ibsen as representing himself at his best. "Give Nothing, or give All," said Brand, over and over, with stirring consequences.. Henrik Johan Ibsen was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director, and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of realism" and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House became the world's most performed play by the early 20th century. Several of his plays were considered scandalous to many of his era, when European theatre was required to model strict morals of family life and propriety. Ibsen's work examined the realities that lay behind many façades, revealing much that was disquieting to many contemporaries. It utilized a critical eye and free inquiry into the conditions of life and issues of morality.

Henrik Ibsen (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

Audiobook

Childhood

A beautiful biographical story. When Mother smiled, no matter how nice her face had been before, it became incomparably nicer and everything around seemed to brighten up as well.”Leo Tolstoy, Childhood Childhood is the first published novel by Leo Tolstoy, released under the initials L. N. in the November 1852 issue of the popular Russian literary journal The Contemporary. Published when Tolstoy was just twenty-three years old, the book was an immediate success, earning notice from other Russian novelists including Ivan Turgenev, who heralded the young Tolstoy as a major up-and-coming figure in Russian literature. Childhood is an exploration of the inner life of a young boy, Nikolenka, and one of the books in Russian writing to explore an expressionistic style, mixing fact, fiction and emotions to render the moods and reactions of the narrator.

Leo Tolstoy (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Swann's Way

The thirst for something other than what we have to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it.- Marcel Proust, Swann's Way Graham Greene called Proust the "greatest novelist of the 20th century," and W. Somerset Maugham called this novel the "greatest fiction to date." Proust died before he was able to complete his revision of the drafts and proofs of the final volumes, the last three of which were published posthumously. Proust explores the themes of time, space and memory but the novel is above all an example of innumerable literary, structural, stylistic and thematic possibilities. A monumental French masterpiece of world literature.

Marcel Proust (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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The Steel Flea

An 1881 comic story by Nikolai Leskov, presented in the form of a traditional skaz or folk-tale, but entirely of Leskov's invention. It tells the story of a left-handed Russian artisan required to impress Tsar Nikolas I with his craftsmanship by outdoing some famous Englishmen who have created a tiny mechanical flea. The Russian smith barricades himself with two skilled colleagues in his workshop until finally forced to come out and reveal the brilliant result of his labor. Far more famous in Russia than in the West, the story of The Steel Flea reveals much about nineteenth-century Russian attitudes toward the West and toward their own country, but is difficult to categorize. Either a celebration of Russian ingenuity or a critique of Russian autocracy, The Steel Flea has established itself as a classic worthy of any of the great Russian authors. [It should be noted that many of the most comical lines in the story are funny only in the original Russian, depending as they do on ridiculous malapropisms or ignorant combinations of words almost impossible to translate. Ms. Hapgood, for example, has had to do the best she could, rendering the mistaken word for "international" as "internecine," for "infusoria" as "nymfozoria," for "Pyramids" as "Keramids," for "stench" as "spiral," and so on.] (Summary by Expatriate)

Nikolai Leskov (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Alcestis (Way Translation)

Taking place in the heart of Africa, "The Tale of Three Lions" is one more thrilling adventure from the eventful life of old hunter Quatermain, the famous hero of "King Solomons Mines". This time, though there are no bloodthirsty people for the old hunter to deal with, the dangers are no less. He has to face the mighty and fierce King of Animals - the Lion. (Summary by Kristine Bekere)

LibriVox Volunteers (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Oedipus Rex

"Oedipus Rex" (Ancient Greek: Οἰδίπους Τύραννος, Oidipous Tyrannos), also known as "Oedipus the King" or "Oedipus the Tyrant," is an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles that was first performed about 429 BC (noted classicist Gilbert Murray, translator of this version of the play, rendered the title as "Oedipus, King of Thebes"). It was the second in order of Sophocles's composition of his three plays dealing with Oedipus. Thematically, however, it was the first in the trilogy's historical chronology, followed by Oedipus at Colonus and then Antigone. "Oedipus the King" tells the story of Oedipus, a man who becomes the king of Thebes, whilst in the process unwittingly fulfilling a prophecy that he would kill his father Laius and marry his mother Jocasta. The play is an example of classic tragedy, notably containing an emphasis upon how Oedipus's own faults contribute to his downfall (as opposed to making fate the sole cause). Over the centuries, "Oedipus Rex" has come to be regarded by many as the Greek tragedy par excellence.

Sophocles (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil. Crime and Punishment is considered by many as the first of Dostoevsky’s cycle of great novels, which would culminate with his last completed work, The Brothers Karamazov, shortly before his death.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished St. Petersburg student who formulates and executes a plan to kill a hated, unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money, thereby solving his financial problems and at the same time, he argues, ridding the world of evil. Crime and Punishment is considered by many as the first of Dostoevsky's cycle of great novels, which would culminate with his last completed work, The Brothers Karamazov, shortly before his death.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author), Expatriate (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Expatriate