Doorstop tradition revived in Russia

[Catherine Edwards]

According to a friend his agency in London is David
Godwin, so hopefully they'll get on the case with
translation into English.  It sounds brilliant.



--- jd <wescac at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wonder if it'll ever be translated...
> 
> On 8/9/06, Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > "A RUSSIAN artist is being heralded as the new
> Tolstoy after his debut novel
> > sold out within four weeks in Moscow despite being
> a daunting 1500 pages
> > long.
> > Maxim Kantor, 48, achieved fame on the Russian
> underground art scene of the
> > 1980s and 90s and has 140 etchings in the British
> Museum.
> >
> > He decided to write his modern-day War and Peace
> because he was
> > disillusioned by Russia's experience of democracy.
> >
> > "I always thought I'd write a big novel about what
> happened to my country
> > and to the world," he said.
> >
> > "It was obvious that in the last 20 years we were
> passing through a very
> > dramatic and important period and big questions
> needed to be asked about
> > freedom and civilisation.
> >
> > "I had been thinking about it for years. Then one
> day I was suddenly 44 and
> > I thought, if I don't start now, I never will."
> >
> > He spent four years on the epic work, The Drawing
> Textbook, which opens with
> > the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet
> leader in 1985 and follows the
> > subsequent 20 years of tremendous change in
> Russia.
> >
> > Although it traces the fortunes and thwarted loves
> of one family of
> > intelligentsia, it is also a political satire with
> a huge cast of artists,
> > critics, secret policemen, oligarchs and
> politicians, including Boris
> > Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair.
> >
> > .....
> >
> > The book has an unusual structure. Each chapter
> begins with a couple of
> > pages on drawing, which together form a textbook.
> After every two fiction
> > chapters, there is a political chronicle
> commenting on the economy, the arts
> > and world events such as the war in Iraq".
> >
> >
> >
>
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19134129-5001986,00.html
> >
> >
>
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> 



		
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