Renews and enhances our understanding of Tolstoy's fiction in the context of 'World Literature', a term that he himself used in "What Is Art?" (1987). Connects Tolstoy's writings with the work of Stendhal, Flaubert, Goethe, Proust, Lampedusa, and Mahfouz, and offers new insights into "Anna Karenina", "War & Peace", and "Hadji Murad".