Description
Book SynopsisOne of the first Russian writers to make a name for herself on the Internet, Linor Goralik writes conversational short works that conjure the absurd, reflecting post-Soviet life and daily universals. Her mastery of the minimal is on full display in this collection of poems, stories, comics, a play, and an interview, translated for the first time.
Trade ReviewFound Life will richly reward readers interested in short-form fiction and in the shifting landscape of contemporary Russian literature more generally, not to mention daily life in today’s Russia. -- James H. McGavran III * Translation and Literature *
By turns entertaining, quixotic and unnerving, this sampling of the prolific writer’s many voices and styles is something you will want to leave lying around to dip into when you have a spare moment, or just before nodding off to bed, to seed your dreamscape. * Russian Life *
The most engaging pieces, despite their brevity, require concentration, but whatever your attention span, you'll be rewarded by miniatures such as this: 'The signature taste of a gun barrel.' -- Anna Aslanyan * Times Literary Supplement *
A welcome collection from a writer worth hearing more from—so translators get busy. * Kirkus Reviews *
Linor Goralik is a Renaissance woman of our own day, writing (and drawing!) in a wide range of genres, all with sharp intelligence. Her writing is fresh and thought-provoking, with both profound insight and deadpan humor. The numerous translators allow exploration of different aspects of Goralik’s voice, so that this selection of work offers the reader a wonderful variety and versatility. A beautiful and important book! -- Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore College
Linor Goralik has a perfect ear for the wander and wonder of ordinary speech, for the way the weirdness of human language conveys the weirdness of human experience. In turn hilarious and heart-rending, her fictions and poems bristle with epiphanies, with jolts of comprehension and, just as commonly, of vertiginous incomprehension. A literary descendant of Daniil Kharms, the conceptualists, and Chekhov, this transnational writer-ventriloquist describes a world of multiple realities, including that of the supernatural, but she is also painstakingly precise in her depictions of male and female behavior in post-Soviet space. The editors and translators are to be praised for, among many other things, finding the idiomatic and colloquial American English to convincingly express the alive Russian of the original. -- Eugene Ostashevsky, author of
The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of PiGoralik remains a key figure in post-Soviet literature and culture due to her omnivorous referentiality and intertextuality, her deployment of detail, her absurdist, jarring wit, and her ability to construct tiny, perfect vignettes out of everyday scraps of language . . .
Found Life is a strong introduction to a writer representing an important thread of contemporary Russophone literature and culture. -- Anne O. Fisher * The Russian Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Part I: Poetry
Part II: Comics
Part III: Theater
Part IV: Short Prose
Excerpts from
Biblical ZooFound LifeIn Short: Ninety-One Rather Short StoriesSomething Like That (A War Story)The Blind EyePart V: Longer Prose
Agatha Goes HomeValerii: A Short NovelPart VI: “Everyone Reads the Text That’s in Their Own Head”
