Russian Literature

[Aldawen]

If you ever come across Michail Kozyrev (I think that will be the English form) I would suggest to have a closer look although it's not current literature at all. The original title of the novel I like to recommend is Pjatoe puteschestwie Lemjuelja Gulliwera. I don't know if it's translated into English, the German edition Die fünfte Reise Lemuel Gullivers dates from 2005. It's not really a new novel regarding the time of its writing (1936) but still considering its first publication date (1991 in Russia). It's a satire on Nazi Germany wrapped in a fifth travel of Gulliver and very clear sighted taking into account what happend afterwards in Germany. Gulliver must have been a quite popular literary figure in Russia during that time, and I had the impression that Kozyrev managed well to adapt to the style of Swift's novel.

 

[Hamlet]

Thanks Aldawen, if we could find a link to this book, that might be an interesting opener.

This is an area that I'm pretty much out at sea with...

 

[Hamlet]

Well, this is it Eric, I'd probably guess at that depressing content, but it's not something I want to read. Has Russia got the same wave we're seeing in crime fiction elsewhere running, bloody and graphic, CSI style...

 

[Hamlet]

http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/russian/works-of-contemporary-russian-women-writers/

How about this link for a way in to comtemp Russian female writers and many others?

 

[Liam]

still want a fifteenth translation of some Dostoevsky classic

Eric, this actually ties in with the question of money, as always, and not necessarily the publishers' obstinacy in regards to publishing contemporary literature in translation. Contemporary literature in translation is a risky business, not everyone is going to read it, and not everyone is going to buy it; whereas foreign classics are a staple in most advanced high school and college/university literature classes and seminars (I first read Crime & Punishment in 11th grade, for an AP English class). These books WILL sell because there's a huge number of students signing up for literature classes, and not everyone can use the same translation.

Translators usually align themselves with the same publisher, or they can take themselves to a different publisher, but be that as it may, only one publishing house at a time has the right to publish any given translation. If Random House is selling a translation of War & Peace and students are actively buying it, naturally Knopf, Viking Press and FSG want a piece of the pie each, as well, but they can't, unless they sign up a different translator. They will then reserve the copyright for that particular translation.

You're a translator who's worked with publishers before, come on, you should know this. The lack of translated contemporary fiction in our book stores has less to do with the publishers, as I said, so much as with the reading public's general indifference toward translated titles from other countries.

 

[Eric]

Liam, it also has a lot to do with things that are out of copyright, after the statutory 70 years after the author's death, if I remember rightly. Publishers love to do things on the cheap, so not all of the cheap classics fad is altruism and trying to educate the masses. Some of it is calculated profit-making. And as you suggest, if whole classes of schoolkids are reading their 19th century classics, lots of books can be sold to such readers. And these school-age readers are too young and naïve to appreciate the differences between translations, unless their teachers are very astute and only insist on the best. Because some of these cheap classics translations are by no means the most recent ones.

I'm not sure whether there is any way that a multinational conglomerate book publishing company can actually buy up the copyright of a 19th century classic and monolopolise it, so I suppose they can simply get a new translator, and then that translation is theirs, but they cannot stop other translations of the same book. So Dickens, George Eliot, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky will often be found in several editions simultaneously.

I personally don't work with Wordsworth Classics, Penguin Classics, or similar set-ups. I translate contemporary literature, so I never get into this area of translation profitability.

 

[Liam]

Anzhelina Polonskaya's slim book of poems Paul Klee's Boat will be released in early 2013 in Andrew Wachtel's translation:

 

[Eric]

Fine Liam, I'll look out for that. Wachtel was one of my contacts at the publishing house that published my recent Kross translation. But it's nice to see that he's found time to translate a book himself, because too many potential translators never find the time to actually translate, as they get bogged down with administrative tasks, not least if they teach at a university or work in publishing.

Here's some more information on Anzhelina Polonskaya:

http://www.polonskaya.com/aboutEN

 

[altai]

I admit I haven't read through all the 16 pages of this thread and I probably posted similar tings before but still. I think from contemporary writers in Russia the most famous are Pelevin, Sorokin and Akunin. Of this I've read only Pelevin. He is probably available in translation (I've seen his novels in English in the shops in Helsinki). He writes post-modernist tricky novels, mixing philosophy, his beloved buddhism and social criticism of contemporary Russia, but he does it all in a light manner with a good deal of humour and inventiveness. His first novel which became instantly a cult in Russia was Generation P, which I guess came out in English as Babylon, a conspiracy/sci fi/post modern/social critique of capitalism/communism with a twisted cinematographic plot now turned into a movie. I personally liked it as for me he was the first writer that made an attempt to write something meaningful and kind of deep of the transition that Russian society was undergoing in its sudden embrace of capitalism. Generation P stands for "the generation that chose Pepsi", a spin on a popular Pepsi commercial of early 90s.

He wrote many books so far and as of late I think he has been repeating himself. I tried to read his Ampir V, a story about vampires in the late Soviet Union, but I dropped it for repetitiveness. But another book of his I truly enjoyed was " The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, again a fantastic parabole from modern Moscow, sprinkled with a good deal of humor (I actually laughed out loud several times, but I don't know if the humour could survive the translation) and some really cool metaphors on Russia today. Plus Buddhism and general pondering on Western modernity.

Here is his wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Pelevin

There is also a NY Times review of The Sacred Book of the Werewolf, quite decent overall, although by the end I did stumble on a missed shot at spotting a pun.

The reviewer writes:

"Early in the novel, as A Hu-Li plies her trade, her signals get jammed when she brushes up against a member of the F.S.B. (the new K.G.B.), the “captain of the hit men’s brigade.” Alexander Sery (his surname, which means “gray” in Russian, is also a euphemism for the black market)" this is a typical "intellectual error" of overthinking. Any Russian child, of course, would immediately say that "seryi" (серый) is not an allusion to a 'grey market' (nobody in Russia calls back market "grey") but a nickname of a wolf in all Russian fairy tales. I wonder how many more missed shots are contained in the translation and how much is it possible for a foreign reader to spot puns and tropes that stem from Russian pop and not so pop culture, but this is a topic for another thread.
the review can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/books/review/Schillinger-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

 

[Liam]

Eric is gonna LOVE this, : The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945-1990.

In any event, a very timely volume. What the hell is going on in Russia with the Pussy Riot???

 

[Eric]

Looks interesting. Have you, Liam, found a complete contents list yet? Because I haven't noticed any Balts yet.

 

[Svidrigailov]

Pelevin, Sorokin, Akunin - modern Russian writers? You have an obvious dilution of a brain. They can be called somehow - but only not writers. I would define them as talented handicraftsmen in the field of texts. Yes, talented, but only handicraftsmen (that is it is possible to replace them with crowd of other handicraftsmen - and our world from it will lose nothing). The genius and talent is absolutely different concepts (as Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and musical a subject in the advertizing "Danone").

 

[Eric]

Comrade Svidrigailov. Never mind the polemic, supply us outsiders with a few names of contemporary Russian writers who you personally think (having read their works, of course) are the right kind of thing for us ignorant foreigners to read.

Names, works, etc.

 

[Svidrigailov]

I am not the expert on modern Russian literature. From time to time I try to read something according to the advice of acquaintances, but in overwhelming majority modern books is literary waste paper. I will better re-read classics, than to be picked these mountains of garbage.
Now hardly I will remember that it is necessary to advise. Only some names were in recent years remembered: Evgeny Grishkovets - his many works were pleasant to me (probably, he is the best modern writer in Russia), Pavel Sanayev - "Bury me behind a plinth"; Zakhar Prilepin - the ambiguous author, but me was for some reason remembered (his any book seemed even is a few years ago recognized as the best foreign book whether in China whether in Japan).
I after all not the professional writer or the critic - at me elementary am not present time to read many books.

 

[Hamlet]

What's the opinion in Russia Svidrigailov, do your acquaintances still largely stick to the classics, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev ... ?

 

[Svidrigailov]

Basically, Yes.

 

[Eric]

What sort of people are your acquaintances, Arkady Ivanovich? It would be interesting to know what sort of people, in this day and age, stick to a diet of 19th century Russian writers.

 

[Liam]

Well, there is some good (possibly great) literature left in modern Russia still, names like Sosnora (both poetry & prose), etc.

Probably NOT Pelevin and Sorokin, who are in the good-not-great category, as S. rightly notes.

I myself am very curious about Mikhail Shishkin/Михаил Шишкин, whose name I have mentioned before on several occasions (specifically his novel Maidenhair/Венерин Волос). From what I've heard, he does completely new things in his prose, with the Russian language, the concept of plot/storytelling and character development.

I don't have much time to check him out at present but, you know, one of these days, ...

He also has a serious, pleasant face, I think:

 

[Svidrigailov]

I tried to read this author. I read 100-150 pages and tired. Interesting, but too chaotic, broken written. It is possible, further book was better, but I was bored of reading such "artificial" the text.

 

[Liam]

Which one are you talking about, Sosnora or Shishkin?

Sosnora's poetry is wholly artificial, but that's part of the pleasure. If everyone wrote like Sosnora I would go crazy, but he's one of a kind. I particularly like his "reworkings" of medieval Russian texts, like The Song of Igor's Campaign, etc.

Can't comment on Shishkin as I haven't read him yet.