Title
Books About Us
Document Type
Essay
Annotation
Tracks the history of the introduction of Western novels in the post-Stalin Soviet Union of the mid-1950s and early 1960s. Gilburd discusses the uniquely intimate relationships Soviet readers forged with Western literature and identifies the roles translators played in transforming and renewing Soviet literature by diversifying Russian language through translations of Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque, and J. D. Salinger. Discusses Hemingway’s rebirth and meteoric rise to fame in Soviet culture due largely to the efforts of his biographer and translator, Ivan Kashkin. Looks at Kashkin’s work uncovering the “real” tragic figure beneath the author’s macho public persona and study of Hemingway’s minimalist style in relation to ethical considerations of language. Finally, Gilburd traces the protracted publication history of For Whom the Bell Tolls due to its Spanish Civil War subject matter.
Published in
To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture
Date
2018
Pages
103-157
Citation
Gilburd, Eleonory. “Books About Us.” In To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture, 103-57. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2018.