10 The Linguist AUGUST/SEPTEMBER
www.ciol.org.uk
RUSSIAN IN THE UK
As more Russian books are published in English,
Yana Kovalskaya looks at what's driving this revival
T
he end of the 20th century marked the
beginning of a difficult period for
contemporary Russian writing. With
the fall of the Soviet Union, the notorious
censorship apparatus was no longer an issue,
but Russia's publishing industry was not spared
the economic and social hardships that
followed the collapse. This, in turn, severely
crippled the ability of existing and newly
emerging authors to establish themselves on
the literary arena in their home country, let
alone internationally. Writers continued
writing but the industry couldn't support the
growing number of literary voices that longed
to be heard outside Mother Russia.
With the exception of a few editions of
well-known Russian classics, little Russian
literature was published in the UK from 1990
until 2011, when a new publisher came
along. The British fascination with dissident
writers whose works had been smuggled out
of the USSR or written in exile had faded,
and British publishers were reluctant to
produce translations of new Russian fiction.
During this period, Glas New Russian
Writing was publishing English versions of
modern Russian titles in Russia. A few of the
most outstanding made their way to the
British reader, and the beginning of the 21st
century saw a slow rise of English-language
publications of big Russian literary names.
Some gained international recognition, with
Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Vladimir Sorokin
winning the Man Booker International Prize in
2009 and 2013. Tatyana Tolstaya, Lyudmila
Petrushevskaya, Vladimir Sorokin and Victor
Pelevin, whose works still enjoy wide
international attention, became known in the
UK, thanks to the efforts of a select group of
British publishers.
The period was marked by Boris Akunin
taking over the British market for historical
detective novels; Mikhail Shishkin's deep
philosophical works earning high praise
among UK critics; and another unlikely name
– Sergei Lukyanenko – making his way on to
the British science fiction shelves. A literary
renaissance was beginning to return Russia to
its former literary glory.
One publisher's mission
The British book market, dominated by
authors writing in English, is not easy to
enter, even for an award-winning foreign
A Russian renaissance
