Sasha Sokolov
Sasha Sokolov | |
|---|---|
| Александр Всеволодович Соколов | |
| Born | Alexander Vsevolodovitch Sokolov November 6, 1943 |
| Citizenship | Canada USSR |
| Occupations | prose writer, novelist |
| Writing career | |
| Pen name | Sasha Sokolov |
| Notable work | A School for Fools |
| Notable awards | Pushkin Prize Andrei Bely Prize |
Literary movement | Postmodernism |
Sasha Sokolov (Russian: Александр Всеволодович Соколов, romanized: Alexander Vsevolodovitch Sokolov; born November 6, 1943, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) is a writer of Russian literature.
He became known worldwide in the 1970s after his first novel, A School for Fools was published in translation by Ardis Publishers (Ann Arbor, Michigan) in the US, and was later reissued by Four Walls Eight Windows. He is acclaimed for his unorthodox use of language, and for his play with rhythms, sounds and word-associations. The author himself coined the term "proeziya" for his work—in between prose and poetry (an English analog for the term could be "proetry").
Biography
Sokolov is a Canadian citizen and has lived the larger part of his life in the United States and Canada. During the Second World War, his father, Major Vsevolod Sokolov, worked at the Soviet embassy in Canada. In 1946 Major Sokolov (agent "Davey") was deported from Canada accused of spying. After returning to the Soviet Union in 1946 and growing up there, Sokolov did not fit into the Soviet system. In 1965 he was discarded from a military translator's institute. After that he studied journalism at Moscow State University from 1966 to 1971.
Sokolov made several attempts to flee the Soviet Union. He was caught while crossing the Iranian border, and only his father's connections helped him to avoid a long imprisonment.[1]
His second, a postmodern novel, «Between Dog and Wolf», depends even more on the particularities of the Russian language, and it was deemed untranslatable for many years.[2] It has therefore enjoyed far less success than A School for Fools, which has been translated into many languages. However, in late 2016, Between Dog and Wolf was translated into English by Alexander Boguslawski, a longtime friend of Mr. Sokolov, and was published by Columbia University Press.[3]
Sokolov's 1985 novel Palisandriya was translated as Astrophobia and published by Grove Press in the US in 1989. The complete manuscript of his fourth book is said to have been lost when the Greek house where it was written burnt down. Sokolov, who leads a rather reclusive life, says that he keeps writing, but doesn't want to be published any more.
In 2016, Sasha Sokolov's novel "Between a Dog and a Wolf" was translated into English by Alexander Boguslavsky, a Slavic professor from Florida and a longtime friend of the author, and published by Columbia University Press.[4][5].
According to media reports, Sasha Sokolov was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020[6][7][8].
Major works
- Школа для дураков (1976). A School for Fools, trans. Carl R. Proffer (Ardis, 1977); later trans. by Alexander Boguslawski (New York Review Books, 2015)
- Между собакой и волком (1980). Between Dog and Wolf, trans. Alexander Boguslawski (Columbia University Press, 2017)
- Палисандрия [Palisandriia] (1985). Astrophobia, trans. Michael Henry Heim (Grove, 1989)
- In the House of the Hanged: Essays and Vers Libres, trans. Alexander Boguslawski (University of Toronto Press, 2012)
References
- ↑ Сумеречное состояние Саши Соколова «НГ — Ex libris», 15 сентября 2005 г. Nezavisimaya Gazeta
- ↑ Kolb 2000, pp. 193, 218.
- ↑ Sokolov, Sasha (December 6, 2016). Between Dog and Wolf. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231543729.
- ↑ Sokolov, Sasha (December 6, 2016). Between Dog and Wolf. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231543729.
- ↑ Саша Соколов: русский Сэлинджер с буддийским уклоном
- ↑ Саша Соколов не ведает, что его опять выдвинули
- ↑ Biographe.ru Саша Соколов. Писатель
- ↑ Божий писатель Саша Соколов
Literature
- Johnson, D. Barton (1987) "Sasha Sokolov: A Literary Biography", Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 21, Nos 3-4: 203-230.
- Johnson, D. Barton, Introduction for Sasha Sokolov's "School for Fools" by D. Barton Johnson from the University of California
- Kolb, Hanna (2000). "The Dissolution of Reality in Sasha Sokolov's Mezhdu sobakoi i volkom". In McMillin, Arnold (ed.). Reconstructing the Canon: Russian Writing in the 1980s. Studies in Russian and European literature, 3. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Pub. pp. 193–224. ISBN 90-5702-593-0.
- Lotus, Ludmilla L. "Sasha Sokolov's Journey from "Samizdat" to Russia's Favorite Classic: 1976-2006", Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 40, part I, Nos 2-4, 2006: 393-424.
- _____ with D. Barton Johnson, compilers. "Sasha Sokolov: A Selected Annotated Bibliography*. 1967-2006, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 40, part I, Nos 2-4, 2006: 425-94.
- Simmons, Cynthia. Their father's voice. Vassily Aksyonov, Venedikt Erofeev, Eduard Limonov, and Sasha Sokolov. Lang, New York u.a. 1993, ISBN 0-8204-2160-X
External links and references
- 1943 births
- Living people
- American writers of Russian descent
- Moscow State University alumni
- Postmodern writers
- Pushkin Prize winners
- Russian male novelists
- Russian male short story writers
- Soviet male writers
- Soviet novelists
- 20th-century Russian male writers
- 20th-century Russian short story writers
- Canadian male novelists
- Novelists from Ottawa