age and several thousand miles separated Russian Alexander Pushkin and American Flannery O'Connor. This essay seeks to illustrate why they deserve to be considered as icons of world literature. Pushkin's body of works spans poetry -- romantic and political, essays, and novels. Influential music composers like Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rimsky Korsakov and Tchaikovsky adapted the lyrical and dramatic elements of Pushkin's works. Flannery O'Connor's work, on the other hand, was largely restricted to short stories. The profundity of her work lies in its uniqueness -- not volume. Her stories hide gruesomeness, truth and religious thought that is not immediately obvious at a superficial level.

The short-story "The Queen of Spades," while not necessarily representative of all of Pushkin's work gives us an idea of the narrative skills that keep the reader on edge. (Pushkin, 1834) The twists in the story combine elements of fantasy. But at heart this is a story...
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