[Linganth] Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR

[Ilana Gershon]

Dear Colleagues,
Today on the blog, Sarah Phillips talks about her new book, Kurt Vonnegut
in the USSR,  with *Yana Skorobogatov.*

*www.campanthropology.org <http://www.campanthropology.org>*

Best,
Ilana
Press blurb: Sarah D. Phillips explores a fascinating yet little-known
chapter in the history of literary and cultural diplomacy during the Cold
War: the popularity of the American author Kurt Vonnegut in the Soviet
Union during the 1970s. Drawing from previously untouched archives of
manuscripts, letters, and FBI files, along with her interviews of literary
and cultural figures active then in the USSR, Phillips investigates several
key yet little-explored questions about Vonnegut's "Soviet Chapter." What
was it about Vonnegut's writing that so appealed to readers and literary
critics in the 1970s Soviet Union? Were Vonnegut's works censored, and if
so, what exactly fell prey to the infamous “Red Pencil”? How much was
Vonnegut aware of his cult status in the land of Lenin?

Alongside an account of Cold War politics and literary cultural
diplomacy, *Kurt
Vonnegut in the USSR *is also a book about relationships - between Vonnegut
and the Soviet reading public, between Vonnegut and the Soviet literary
establishment, and most especially, between Vonnegut and the woman whose
masterful translations were devoured by readers of Russian: the famous
Soviet translator Rita Rait (1898-1989).

A work at the intersection of anthropology, history, and literary,
translation, American, and Slavic studies, *Kurt Vonnegut in the USSR *is a
close look at the unique contexts around an author and his readers, and the
legacies of this literary cultural diplomacy in American and post-Soviet
literary cultures today.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20260427/15fd3a37/attachment.htm>