Description: Russian Literature since 1991 is the first comprehensive, single-volume compendium of modern scholarship on post-Soviet Russian literature. The volume encompasses broad, complex and diverse sources of literary material - from ideological and historical novels to experimental prose and poetry, from nonfiction to drama. Written by an international team of leading experts on contemporary Russian literature and culture, it presents a broad panorama of genres in post-Soviet literature such as postmodernism, magical historicism, hyper-naturalism (in drama), and the new lyricism. At the same time, it offers close readings of the most prominent works published in Russia since the end of the Soviet regime and elimination of censorship. The collection highlights the interdisciplinary context of twenty-first-century Russian literature and can be widely used both for research and teaching by specialists in and beyond Russian studies, including those in post-Cold War and post-communist world history, literary theory, comparative literature and cultural studies.
Brief description: Evgeny Dobrenko is Professor and Head of Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Sheffield. His most recent publications include A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism: The Soviet Age and Beyond (co-edited with Galin Tihanov, 2011), The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Russian Literature (co-edited with Marina Balina, Cambridge, 2011) and Noncanonical Classic: Dmitry Aleksandrovich Prigov (co-edited with Ilya Kukulin, Mark Lipovetsky and Maria Mayofis, 2010).
Review Quotes: 'The editors' stated goal was to offer 'the first attempt at an integral study of Russian literature after the breakup of the Soviet Union' ... In this they have succeeded admirably. This collection offers a simultaneously readable and thoughtful assessment of approximately forty texts and forty writers and a compelling overview of broad literary trends and developments.' Margaret Ziolkowski, The Russian Review