The Return of Munchausen by Krzhizhanovsky, Sigizmund

The Return of Munchausen (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781681370286)

Vendor: Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Product type: Books
Format: Paperback
$14.95
$14.95
$14.95
Subtotal: $14.95
The Return of Munchausen by Krzhizhanovsky, Sigizmund

The Return of Munchausen

$14.95
The Return of Munchausen by Krzhizhanovsky, Sigizmund

The Return of Munchausen

$14.95
Format: Paperback
Description
Description
x
Baron Munchausen's hold on the European imagination dates back to the late eighteenth century when he first pulled himself (and his horse) out of a swamp by his own upturned pigtail. Inspired by the extravagant yarns of a straight-faced former cavalry officer, Hieronymus von M nchhausen, the best-selling legend quickly eclipsed the real-life baron who helped the Russians fight the Turks. Galloping across continents and centuries, the mythical Munchausen's Travels went through hundreds of editions of increasing length and luxuriance.

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, the Russian modernist master of the unsettling and the uncanny, also took certain liberties with the mythical baron. In this phantasmagoric roman clef set in 1920s Berlin, London, and Moscow, Munchausen dauntlessly upholds his old motto "Truth in lies," while remaining a fierce champion of his own imagination. At the same time, the two-hundred-year-old baron and self-taught philosopher has agreed to return to Russia, Lenin's Russia, undercover. This reluctant secret agent has come out of retirement to engage with the real world.

Author: Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
ISBN-10: 168137028X
ISBN-13: 9781681370286
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Language: English
Published: 12/13/2016
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.30d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 10/01/2016
Publishers Weekly 10/17/2016
By Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
By Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
x
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950), the Ukrainian-born son of Polish emigrants, studied law and classical philology at Kiev University. After graduation and two summers spent exploring Europe, he was obliged to clerk for an attorney. A sinecure, the job allowed him to devote most of his time to literature and his own writing. In 1920, he began lecturing in Kiev on theater and music. The lectures continued in Moscow, where he moved in 1922, by then well known in literary circles. Lodged in a cell-like room on the Arbat, Krzhizhanovsky wrote steadily for close to two decades. His philosophical and phantasmagorical fictions ignored injunctions to portray the Soviet state in a positive light. Three separate efforts to print collections were quashed by the censors, a fourth by World War II. Not until 1989 could his work begin to be published. Like Poe, Krzhizhanovsky takes us to the edge of the abyss and forces us to look into it. "I am interested," he said, "not in the arithmetic but in the algebra of life."

Joanne Turnbull's translations from Russian in collaboration with Nikolai Formozov include Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's The Letter Killers Club (winner of the AATSEEL Award for Best Literary Translation into English) and Autobiography of a Corpse (winner of the PEN Translation Prize).

Recently Viewed Products