The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Vladimir Sharov's Before and During.
As I mentioned just over a week ago, this book, in Oliver Ready's translation, won this year's Read Russia Prize (and it is an impressive translation). I was somewhat hesitant/slow in reviewing it because of the narrator-in-a-madhouse set-up, and the mysticism didn't help either, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, and very impressed. From what one hears, Sharov is definitely one of the more interesting contemporary Russian authors (and I was kind of hoping another of his more recent novels would be translated soon, so I could get to that first ...), and on the basis of this there's little doubt that he is to be taken very seriously.
He's won a number of Russian literary prizes -- including last year's Russian Booker; see also this Q & A with him about that -- and there's no doubt that, sooner or later, more of his work will be available in English. Soon, I hope.
Certainly the most exciting new Russian voice I've come across since Mikhail Shishkin.
As I mentioned just over a week ago, this book, in Oliver Ready's translation, won this year's Read Russia Prize (and it is an impressive translation). I was somewhat hesitant/slow in reviewing it because of the narrator-in-a-madhouse set-up, and the mysticism didn't help either, but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, and very impressed. From what one hears, Sharov is definitely one of the more interesting contemporary Russian authors (and I was kind of hoping another of his more recent novels would be translated soon, so I could get to that first ...), and on the basis of this there's little doubt that he is to be taken very seriously.
He's won a number of Russian literary prizes -- including last year's Russian Booker; see also this Q & A with him about that -- and there's no doubt that, sooner or later, more of his work will be available in English. Soon, I hope.
Certainly the most exciting new Russian voice I've come across since Mikhail Shishkin.