Literary animus in the New Russia

Last night, we were startled to come across a reference in a book of short stories to another Russian writer we had just read. 

Viktor Erofeyev, enfant terrible of the new Russian wave which includes Andreï Makine and Viktor Pelevin, mentions a Vladimir Sorokin in his story titled The Shit-Sucker in his collection Life with an Idiot: 

Having been demobilised four years ago, Vladimir Sorokin, member of the Young Communist League, had returned to his native village, not too proud to get his hands dirty in shitty work on the farm. Now the whole region was trying to emulate this cattle breeder.

Hardly a coincidence as Sorokin the novelist is well known not just in his country. Anyway, it makes us wonder about the state of libel laws in the New Russia. Are the grapes sour?

It oughtn't to surprise us, though, as Erofyev rebelled against his privileged upbringing among the Stalinist elite. Erofeyev is the son of one of Stalin's translators. His father became a key figure in that regime.

Anyway, the set piece of Erofeyev's Life with an Idiot is not The Shit-Sucker but The Parakeet which we urge you to read.

Here are Erofeyev and Sorokin side by side, a tableau that we suspect doesn't happen often in life. In the spirit of mischief, we have placed Sorokin on the right and Erofeyev on the left.

Netherland: A conversation with Joseph O'Neill

Joseph O'Neill's Netherland is an account of an immigrant in the cricketing fraternity of New York. As a quondam cricket fan and writer, we were interested in reading this piece in The Guardian. O'Neill is rumoured to be a long shot for the Booker, for those of you who follow literary punting.

The Assassin's Song: A review

Giles Foden, author of books on Africa, reviews Moyez Vassanji's The Assassin's Song in the Guardian.

Geist excerpts Happiness

Geist magazine published an excerpt from Happiness in Curiosa.

Happiness has a Face(book)

Happiness and Other Disorders: Short Stories has its own Facebook group.

You can read excerpts from several reviews of Happiness and Other Disorders: Short Stories published in Canada and India, as well as news and announcements.

Join the Happiness and Other Disorders group to read the latest announcements and reviews.

There's also the Happiness blogspot.

Reviews of How Fiction Works by James Wood

Two recent reviews of James Wood's How Fiction Works:

Catherine Bush's Globe review and Morgan Meis' The Smart Set review from Drexel.

The Kenyon Review on adverbs

A writer friend is editing the adverbs out of the second edition of her book. We sent her this Kenyon Review feuilleton recently.

This was an act of literary exchange. She reads Sentences and was kind enough to recommend it to us.

Atlantic Canadian Fiction

Stephen Clare and Trevor Adams are producing a book for Nimbus Publishing in Halifax to be released next year titled "Spindrift; The 100 Greatest Atlantic Canadian Books Ever Written."

By way of methodology, they are polling over 1,000 writers, readers and literary people of all sorts across the country to submit their "Top 10" list of fiction/non-fiction works from the East Coast.

So please, share your favourites with them. Feel free to include comments on the books you choose and why they're important to you. Don't limit yourself to fiction, either - feel free to include biographies, historical works, travelogues, and the like.

The only criterion is that the author(s) be from Atlantic Canada, and/or lived in the region for a significant period during their writing careers. And if you are having a hard time coming up with 10 titles, send them your top 5, or even top 3.

Please send your choices along to bookpoll@gmail.com

The deadline for submission is September 30, 2008.

For regularly updated information, visit the website: freewebs.com/bookpoll

Least likely literary places

The Guardian on places unlikely to have inspired writers.

Click here for the story and comments.

I wonder about other countries and their literary maps. Any ideas?

Rushdie reviewed in The Nation

Back after a while....

William Deresiewicz reviews The Enchantress of Florence. Click here for the review