Faulkner, William
Seven Stories. Faulkner's first book in Russian.
Seven Stories. Faulkner's first book in Russian.
Faulkner, William [Seven Stories]. Sem' Rasskazov.
Translation by I. Kashkin, O. Kholmskaia, R. Rait-Kovaleva, M. Bekker, M. Bogoslovskaia.
Afterword by I. Kashkin.
Cover by S. Chakhir'ian.
Moskva, Inostrannaya literatura, 1958.
8vo, 177, [3] pp.
In original illustrated wrappers.
In good condition, minor losses to spine, small cracks to spine, tears to cover.
Faulkner's first book in Russian.
For the first time, Russian translations of Faulkner's texts appeared in the magazine 'Inostrannaia Literatura' (No 5, 1933) and in the anthology 'Amerikanskaia Novella XX veka' (1934). 'Both publications attracted little notice in the Soviet press... those who did write treated Faulkner as a “bourgeois writer, preoccupied with psychological sadism and twitching of a sock consciousness." For the next twenty years Faulkner was ignored by Soviet publishing houses. On those rare occasions when his name was mentioned in passing, the critics continued to view him as a decadent and reactionary' (Faulkner in Russian Criticism, 1997). This lack of recognition may have been influenced by the publication of his story 'Victory' in the newspaper 'Za Rubezhom' (No 21, 25 July 1936).
This collection of stories includes: 'Barn Burning' (1939), 'A Justice' (1931), 'Red Leaves' (1930), 'That Evening Sun' (1931), 'Smoke' (1932), 'Percy Grimm' (1932), and 'Victory' (1931). 'Percy Grimm' is an excerpt from the novel 'Light in August' (1932).
Interestingly, Faulkner's second book in Russian was published the following year. It contained the same stories as the first edition, with only two additional stories added: 'Yo Ho and Two Bottles of Rum' (1925) and 'Sunset' (1925).
The first two books by Faulkner were prepared by Ivan Kashkin (1899-1963), a critic and translator, along with members of his translation school. In the afterword, Kashkin compared Faulkner to Thomas Wolfe, whose first Russian book was published in the same year.