The Man Who Couldn't Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being

Author:   Marian Schwartz ,  Olga Slavnikova ,  Mark Lipovetsky
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
ISBN:  

9780231185943


Pages:   248
Publication Date:   29 January 2019
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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The Man Who Couldn't Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being


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Overview

In the chaos of early-1990s Russia, the wife and stepdaughter of a paralyzed veteran conceal the Soviet Union's collapse from him in order to keep him-and his pension-alive until it turns out the tough old man has other plans. Olga Slavnikova's The Man Who Couldn't Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a life-and the means and meaning of their own lives-by creating a world that doesn't change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled. After her stepfather's stroke, Marina hangs Brezhnev's portrait on the wall, edits the Pravda articles read to him, and uses her media connections to cobble together entire newscasts of events that never happened. Meanwhile, her mother, Nina Alexandrovna, can barely navigate the bewildering new world outside, especially in comparison to the blunt reality of her uncommunicative husband. As Marina is caught up in a local election campaign that gets out of hand, Nina discovers that her husband is conspiring as well-to kill himself and put an end to the charade. Masterfully translated by Marian Schwartz, The Man Who Couldn't Die is a darkly playful vision of the lost Soviet past and the madness of the post-Soviet world that uses Russia's modern history as a backdrop for an inquiry into larger metaphysical questions.

Full Product Details

Author:   Marian Schwartz ,  Olga Slavnikova ,  Mark Lipovetsky
Publisher:   Columbia University Press
Imprint:   Columbia University Press
ISBN:  

9780231185943


ISBN 10:   0231185944
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   29 January 2019
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

Introduction by Mark Lipovetsky The Man Who Couldn’t Die

Reviews

A startling phantasmagoric dystopia, award-winning author Slavnikova's original and challenging vision of Russia's tumultuous 1990s ruminates on death, temporality, memory, illusions, and the persistence of an inert past in a chaotic present. This unforgettable novel cannot help but leave the post-Bond reader both shaken and stirred.--Helena Goscilo, The Ohio State University The Man Who Couldn't Die is an overlooked masterpiece of post-Soviet prose by one of contemporary Russia's most important authors. It reveals how Slavnikova's descriptions (and Schwartz's English equivalent) belong alongside those of Vladimir Nabokov, Iurii Olesha, and Nikolai Gogol as truly revolutionary in Russian prose.--Benjamin Sutcliffe, Miami University


Darkly sardonic . . . . oddly timely, for there are all sorts of understated hints about voter fraud, graft, payoffs, and the endless promises of politicians who have no intention of keeping them. It is also deftly constructed, portraying a world and a cast of characters who are caught between the orderly if drab world of old and the chaos of the 'new rich' in a putative democracy. . . . Slavnikova is a writer American readers will want to have more of.--Kirkus Reviews The Man Who Couldn't Die is an overlooked masterpiece of post-Soviet prose by one of contemporary Russia's most important authors. It reveals how Slavnikova's descriptions (and Schwartz's English equivalent) belong alongside those of Vladimir Nabokov, Iurii Olesha, and Nikolai Gogol as truly revolutionary in Russian prose.--Benjamin Sutcliffe, Miami University


The Man Who Couldn't Die is an overlooked masterpiece of post-Soviet prose by one of contemporary Russia's most important authors. It reveals how Slavnikova's descriptions (and Schwartz's English equivalent) belong alongside those of Vladimir Nabokov, Iurii Olesha, and Nikolai Gogol as truly revolutionary in Russian prose.--Benjamin Sutcliffe, Miami University


Author Information

Olga Slavnikova was born in 1957 in Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg). She is the author of several award-winning novels, including 2017, which won the 2006 Russian Booker prize and was translated into English by Marian Schwartz (2010), and Long Jump, which won the 2018 Yasnaya Polyana Award. Marian Schwartz translates Russian contemporary and classic fiction, including Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and is the principal translator of Nina Berberova.

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