I am heading to the last class of Strange Russian Writers. One of the best I attended during my year as a Nieman fellow at Harvard. Those Russians are as good as they are fascinating.
Stephany Sandler, the professor, caught my attention to her class when she described: “Our course studies Russia’s rebels, deviants, martyrs, loners, and losers as emblems of national identity”.
It has been a blast. I Just read “The Time: Night”, of Ludmila Petrushevskaya. And today we are going to review the work of Dmitrii Prigov.
Just for you to get a sense of what I am talking about, read this poem, translated by Philip Metres. I found it in a blog
In Japan I would be Catullus
And in Rome I would be Hokusai
And in Russia I am the same guy
Who would have been
Catallus in Japan
And in Rome, Hokusai.
So good, ist’n it?
