Memories of the future / by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky ; translated and with an introduction by Joanne Turnbull.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Krzhizhanovskiĭ, Sigizmund, 1887-1950.

Contributor:

Turnbull, Joanne.

Series:

New York Review Books classics

Standardized Title:

Short stories. Selections. English

Language:

English

Russian

Subjects (All):

Krzhizhanovskiĭ, Sigizmund, 1887-1950--Translations into English.

Krzhizhanovskiĭ, Sigizmund.

Krzhizhanovskiĭ, Sigizmund, 1887-1950.

Short stories, Russian--Translations into English.

Short stories, Russian.

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

xiv, 228 pages ; 17 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York Review Books, 2009.

Language Note:

Translated from the Russian.

Summary:

"Krzhizhanovsky is a poker-faced surrealist whose imagination is so radical it goes beyond political lampoon into the realms of metaphysical assault. His writing is in the fantastical modernist mode of Jorge Luis Borges and Stanislaw Lem-he works out the eccentric premises of his plot with a relentless cogency."

Written in Soviet Moscow in the 1920s-but considered too subversive even to show to a publisher-the seven tales included here attest to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's boundless imagination, black humor, and breathtaking irony: a man toses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling "everything you need for suicide"; an absentminded passenger boards the wrong train, winding up in a place where night is day, nightmares are the reality, and the backs of all facts have been broken; a man out looking for work comes across a line for logic but doesn't join it as there's no guarantee the logic will last; a sociable corpse misses his own funeral; an inventor gets a glimpse of the far-from-radiant communist future

"Delightful to read, humorous, sad and meaningful ... the flavor and personality of Krzhizhanovsky's writing is all his own."

"Nightmarish visions and philosophical conundrums explored in highly entertaining, fleet-footed prose."

"We are lucky that Krzhizhanovsky's work has survived. ... It is now clear that he is one of the greatest Russian writers of the last century."

Contents:

Quadraturin

The bookmark

Someone else's theme

The branch line

Red snow

The thirteenth category of reason

Memories of the future.

ISBN:

9781590173190

1590173198

OCLC:

264044003