Bryan Karetnyk – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2018 READ RUSSIA PRIZE Imagine that many of Russia's greatest writers of the twentieth century were entirely unknown in the West, and only recently discovered in Russia itself. Strange as it may seem, it is in fact true, and their rediscovery is setting the literary world alight. Names such as Gaito Gazdanov and Vasily Yanovsky have excited great interest in Russia, and with stories of gambling, drug abuse, love, death, suicide, madness, espionage, glittering high society and the seedy underworld of Europe's capitals, their appeal is extremely broad. Many of these writers' works are only now being published in Russia for the first time, alongside those of leading contemporary authors - and to great critical acclaim. And we aren't just talking about two or three obscure authors; there are, quite literally, dozens of them.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2018LONGLISTED FOR THE GLOBAL READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2018Fleeing Russia amid the chaos of the 1917 revolution and subsequent Civil War, many writers went on to settle in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere. In exile, they worked as taxi drivers, labourers and film extras, and wrote some of the most brilliant and imaginative works of Russian literature.This new collection includes stories by the most famous émigré writers, Vladimir Nabokov and Ivan Bunin, and introduces powerful lesser known voices, some of whom have never been available in English before. Here is Yuri Felsen's evocative, impressionistic account of a night of debauchery in Paris; Teffi's witty and timely reflections on refugee experience; and Mark Aldanov's sparkling story of an elderly astrologer who unexpectedly finds himself in Hitler's bunker in Berlin. Exploring displacement, loss and new beginnings, their short stories vividly evoke the experience of life in exile and also return obsessively to the Russia that has been left behind - whether as a beautiful dream or terrifying nightmare. By turns experimental, funny, exciting, poignant and haunting, these works reveal the full range of émigré writing and are presented here in masterly translations by Bryan Karetnyk and others.

This book presents a sustained and systematic analysis of the totalitarian topos across Vladimir Nabokov’s life and career. Contributing to the ongoing reappraisal of Nabokov’s writing in its engagement with politics and ideology, this study contends that the rise of totalitarianism constituted one of the most urgent, substantial and complex issues with which Nabokov and his peers in emigration had to contend. Yet while the precarious exilic status of the Russian diaspora not only made the spread of totalitarian ideologies and dictatorships an acute and tangible danger, it also, perversely, afforded its members exceptionally free scope to respond intellectually and creatively, as individuals outside and on the limits of these systems. This is the first book that critically and comprehensively examines Nabokov’s literary and intellectual responses to the rise of totalitarian systems and ideologies, contextualizing them within those of his peers in the first wave of Russian emigration.