Man and His Surroundings

by Fazil Iskander, Alexander Rojavin (Translator)

Overview

Man and His Surroundings irreverently explores Soviet and post-Soviet identity, politics, and history. In what Iskander himself calls the book’s seminal novella, the narrator meets a man who believes himself to be Lenin, thawed out after decades of cryogenic storage. The narrator endures a phantasmagorical account of what “Lenin” thought and did during the October Revolution of 1917 and how another revolution is imminent. In another novella, the narrator tells of a nationally renowned fencer as the fencer sits at a neighboring table, discussing the impossibility of equality on earth, while his son pesters him for ice cream. The novellas enrapture the reader with their humor and impart a better intuitive understanding of the Soviet cultural heritage and mindset.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798887191072
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	05/09/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	324
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Fazil Iskander (1920 - 2016) was raised in Abkhazia but settled permanently in Moscow after graduating from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow in 1954. Iskander’s major works include the satirical novel Sozvezdiye kozlotura (1966; The Goatibex Constellation) and the allegorical dystopia Kroliki i udavy (1982; Rabbits and Boa Constrictors). Iskander spent decades writing the epic novel Sandro iz Chegema (Sandro of Chegem), which chronicles the collision of Soviet values with Abkhazian patriarchal life.

Alexander Rojavin is a multilingual intelligence, media, and policy analyst specializing in information warfare. He is currently editing a book on modern Russian cinema as a key battlefield in the Kremlin’s information war (forthcoming Routledge). At the same time, literary translation has always been one of his first loves.

Table of Contents

Translator’s Introduction

Instead of a Foreword

1. Lenin at the Amra

2. The Rapier

3. The Hunting Hawk

4. The Beauty of Norms, or a Boy Waits for a Man

5. The Light of the Twilight Youth

6. A Sea of Charisma

7. Palermo—New York

8. The Old Men’s Bender on the Sea

9. Lenin and Uncle Sandro

Editorial Reviews

This new translation of Fazil Iskander’s Man and His Surroundings, a collection of nine novellas set in the writer’s native Abkhazia, is a much-needed addition to Iskander’s oeuvre available in English. Iskander’s prose, beloved by generations of readers, offers a humorous and de-centering look at the absurdities of the Soviet reality, seen through the looking glass of life in Mukhus (Sukhumi). Alexander Rojavin's translation skillfully captures Iskander’s lapidary style and austere humor, while his passionate translator’s introduction praises the power of humor in the face of tyranny, past and present. This book will be a welcome addition to anyone teaching Soviet and Post-Soviet epochs in post-colonial perspective, and an enjoyable read for many.”

— Maria Khotimsky, Senior Lecturer in Russian, Global Languages, MIT

From the Publisher