Andrey Kurkov, Geografiia odinochnogo vystrela [A Bullet's Itinerary]

Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2000

Places

Russia (Publication/ performance)
Ukraine (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Geografiia odinochnogo vystrela

[

A Bullet’s Itinerary

], an 800-page long trilogy first published in 2000, took Kurkov seven years to complete. It is set in 1928-1977 in Soviet Russia, or rather in an alternative absurdist version of it, which is ruled, for a large part of the book, by Mikhail Kalinin (who changes his name to Tverin, after the city of Tver’, which is exactly the opposite of what really happened), while Stalin is not even mentioned.

A Bullet’s Itinerary

is a brave attempt to merge the saint’s life genre with the epic novel. The book consists of three parts which cannot stand on their own. Once again with Kurkov, we are dealing with several slowly evolving parallel narratives. Narrative I is about an Angel who descends from Paradise to Earth trying to find out why no…

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863 words

Citation: Rogatchevski, Andrei. "Geografiia odinochnogo vystrela". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31910, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Andrey Kurkov, Geografiia odinochnogo vystrela [A Bullet's Itinerary]

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