Vladimir Sorokin – författare

I det heliga Rysslands tjänst (2006) utspelas år 2027 då Ryssland åter blivit ett självhärskardöme. Landet har byggt en stor mur mot den förhatliga västvärlden och fiender jagas skoningslöst av "opritjnikerna", säkerhetstjänsten. Huvudpersonen Komjaga har en hektisk arbetsdag - han ska hinna slå ner upprorstendenser, utföra en razzia mot ett adelsgods, bevittna en gudstjänst i Kreml och delta i brödraskapets rituella sexorgie i bastun.

Vladimir Sorokin är tillbaka med en ny halsbrytande roman. När han sätter fart finns ingenting heligt, allra minst ryskheten - men ryssarna själva har lärt sig att älska honom, och han har blivit deras mest populäre författare internationellt.I en nedfryst framtid utkämpar läkaren Garin en kamp mot klockan för att rädda sina landsmän från en utländsk och gåtfull epidemi. Man talar om den nya digerdöden. Mörkret har fallit, månen skymtar bakom molnen och kölden är hård.Hästarna kämpar på den kalla tundran där fienden kommer allt närmare. Snart börjar det bli tydligt att Garin och hans kusk kommer att stå öga mot öga med den värsta fienden av dem alla - Rysslands värsta snöstorm genom tiderna är nämligen på ingång."Sorokins heliga Ryssland är en mix av medeltida, stalinistiska och sciencefictionartade inslag. /.../ Det är en elegant, fantasifull och mycket rolig bok. Och hemsk. Jag kan inte tänka mig en mer drabbande kritik av Rysslands pågående avdemokratisering." Dagens Nyheter om I det heliga Rysslands tjänst

One of The Telegraph''s Best Fiction Books of 2011“Vladimir Sorokin is one of Russia''s greatest writers, and this novel is one of his best . . . A joy to read—more entertaining, dynamic, engaging, and deeply hilarious than a dystopian novel has any right to be.” —Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and Super Sad True Love StoryA startling, relentless portrait of a troubled and troubling Russian empire, Vladimir Sorokin''s Day of the Oprichnik is at once a richly imagined vision of the future and a razor-sharp diagnosis of a country in crisis. Moscow, 2028. A scream, a moan, and a death rattle slowly pull Andrei Danilovich Komiaga out of his drunken stupor. But wait—that''s just his ring tone. So begins another day in the life of an oprichnik, one of the czar''s most trusted courtiers—and one of the country''s most feared men.In this new New Russia, where futuristic technology and the draconian codes of Ivan the Terrible are in perfect synergy, Komiaga will attend extravagant parties, partake in brutal executions, and consume an arsenal of drugs. He will rape and pillage, and he will be moved to tears by the sweetly sung songs of his homeland.Vladimir Sorokin has imagined a near future both too disturbing to contemplate and too realistic to dismiss. But like all of his best work, Sorokin''s new novel explodes with invention and dark humor.

In many respects, Their Four Hearts is a book of endings and final things. Vladimir Sorokin wrote it in the year the Soviet Union collapsed and then didn’t write fiction for ten years after completing it––his next book being the infamous Blue Lard, which he wrote in 1998. Without exaggerating too much, one might call it the last book of the Russian twentieth century and Blue Lard the first book of the Russian twenty-first century. It is a novel about the failure of the Soviet Union, about its metaphysical designs, and about the violence it produced, but presented as God might see it or Bataille might write it.

Their Four Hearts follows the violent and nonsensical missions carried out by a group of four characters who represent Socialist Realist archetypes: Seryozha, a naive and optimistic young boy; Olga, a dedicated female athlete; Shtaube, a wise old man; and Rebrov, a factory worker and a Stakhanovite embodying Soviet manhood. However, the degradation inflicted upon them is hardly a Socialist Realist trope. Are the acts of violence they carry out a more realistic vision of what the Soviet Union forced its “heroes” to live out? A corporealization and desacralization of self-sacrificing acts of Soviet heroism? How the Soviet Union truly looked if you were to strip away the ideological infrastructure? As we see in the long monologues Shtaube performs for his companions––some of which are scatological nonsense and some of which are accurate reproductions of Soviet language––Sorokin is interested in burrowing down to the libidinal impulses that fuel a totalitarian system and forcing the reader to take part in them in a way that isn’t entirely devoid of aesthetic pleasure.

As presented alongside Greg Klassen’s brilliant charcoal illustrations, which have been compared to the work of Bruno Schulz by Alexander Genis and the work of Ralph Steadman as filtered through Francis Bacon by several gallerists, this angular work of fiction becomes a scatological storybook-world that the reader is dared to immerse themselves in.

Grotesque, deconstructive, and absolutely genius, Vladimir Sorokin’s short story collection Dispatches from the District Committee is a revelatory, offbeat portrait of Soviet life beyond the propaganda and state-sponsored realism.

Celebrated—and censored—for its political satire, literary irreverence, and provocative themes, Sorokin''s work has been recognized across the world for its scathing, darkly humorous commentary on political and cultural oppression in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia.

Dispatches from the District Committee brings together stories from Sorokin’s incendiary 1992 collection The First Subotnik/My First Working Saturday and elsewhere. Skillfully translated by Max Lawton, these stories remain subversive classics, and increasingly relevant in a post-truth information age.