Copyright

Catherine O’Neil

Published On

2024-04-03

Page Range

pp. 653–672

Language

  • English

Print Length

20 pages

Contemporary Russophone Literature of Ukraine in the Changing World of Russian Literature

Andrey Kurkov and Alexei Nikitin

  • Catherine O’Neil (author)
Chapter of: Translating Russian Literature in the Global Context(pp. 653–672)
This chapter examines the careers of two of Kyiv’s most prominent Russophone authors, Andrei Kurkov and Alexei Nikitin, who had very different publication experiences both at home and abroad. I focus on the reception of their prose fiction in English translation in the US; since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2023, I have updated this chapter to address some of the sweeping, ongoing changes in Russophone culture and its perception in the west. My analysis draws on my extensive personal and professional relations with literary and scholarly figures in Ukraine, including the two authors under discussion and their publishers and translators.

Contributors

Catherine O’Neil

(author)
Professor of Russian Language and Culture at United States Naval Academy

Catherine O’Neil is Professor of Russian Language and Culture at the United States Naval Academy. She received her Master’s in Russian literature from the University of Toronto and her doctorate from the University of Chicago. She has written on Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian and European romanticism, and currently works on contemporary Ukrainian literature and Translation Studies. She has translated Alexei Nikitin’s The Face of Fire (with Dominique Hoffman; Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2024) and is translating Victory Park.