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Almost unknown during his lifetime, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky is now hailed as a master of Russian prose.
Countries That Don¿t Exist showcases a selection of Krzhizhanovsky¿s exceptional nonfiction, which spans a dizzying range of genres and voices.
List of contents
Editors' Preface
Introduction: Restoring the Balance
1. Love as a Method of Cognition
2. Idea and Word
3. Argo and Ergo
4. A Philosopheme of the Theater (Excerpt)
5. A Collection of Seconds
6. The Poetics of Titles
7. Countries That Don’t Exist
8. Edgar Allan Poe: Ninety Years After His Death
9. Shaw and the Bookshelf (Abridged)
10. The Dramaturgy of the Chessboard
11. Moscow in the First Years of the War: Physiological Sketches (Excerpts)
12. A History of Unwritten Literature: A Prospectus
13. A History of Hyperbole
14. Writer’s Notebooks
Notes
Contributors
About the author
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887–1950) was born in Kiev and moved to Moscow shortly after the revolution, where he joined the experimental art and theater worlds. Though known in literary circles, he published little during his lifetime, as his phantasmagoric and metafictional texts met the disapproval of Soviet censors. His books in English translation include Memories of the Future, The Letter Killers Club, and The Return of Munchausen.
Jacob Emery is associate professor in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at Indiana University.
Alexander Spektor is associate professor of Russian in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Georgia.
With translations by: Anthony Anemone, Caryl Emerson, Jacob Emery, Anne O. Fisher, Elizabeth F. Geballe, Reed Johnson, Tim Langen, Alisa Ballard Lin, Muireann Maguire, Benjamin Paloff, Karen Link Rosenflanz, Alexander Spektor, and Joanne Turnbull.
Summary
Almost unknown during his lifetime, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky is now hailed as a master of Russian prose. Countries That Don’t Exist showcases a selection of Krzhizhanovsky’s exceptional nonfiction, which spans a dizzying range of genres and voices.
Additional text
[A] thought-provoking collection. . . . With a playful blend of logic and fantasy, Krzhizhanovsky’s works defamiliarize everyday concepts. Readers interested in the crossover between art and philosophy will be rewarded.
