McCullers, Carson [Selected Works]. Izbrannoe. Typescript.

Leningrad, 1988.
4to, [1], 1-72, [1], 72-102, [1] l., [1] l.cat.

In handmade cover made from plastic folder.
In good condition, light wear, manuscript additions in black ink. Misprints in pagination: l. 32 and 59 are missing, while l. 33 and 72 are duplicated.

Rare samizdat.

This typescript serves as an appendix to the samizdat (underground press) periodical ‘Mitin Zhurnal’ (‘Mitia's Journal’), a significant literary magazine founded by writer, poet, and translator Dmitrii Volchek (b. 1964) in December 1984. Originally intended for ‘a very narrow circle of enthusiasts of non-traditional literature’, the magazine quickly garnered a wider readership, drawing interest from those seeking avant-garde works far removed from official Soviet literature. Notable contributors to the magazine included Dmitri Prigov, Vladimir Sorokin, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Julia Kissina, journalist Sergei Dobrotvorsky, philosopher Aleksandr Sekatskii, and others. ‘Mitin Zhurnal’ also featured translations of works by Samuel Beckett, Boris Vian, Paul Bowles, Sławomir Mrożek, and many more. It's worth noting that, unlike other samizdat publications, this magazine was geared toward young audiences. In 1993, rather than fading away like many samizdat projects, the magazine transitioned to typographic printing and continued to offer daring texts that other periodicals hesitated to publish. In 1998, the editorial team of the magazine was honored with the Andrei Bely Prize, the oldest independent literary prize awarded in Russia. ‘Mitin Zhurnal’ remained in irregular publication until 2020.
This typescript comprises Russian translations of works by Carson McCullers (1917-1967), including the novel ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’ and stories such as ‘How I Began to Write’, ‘The Orphanage’, ‘Art and Mr. Mahoney’, ‘Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland’, ‘Correspondence’, and ‘The Jockey’. According to the index of ‘Mitin Zhurnal’, these works were first published in different issues of the magazine from No. 1, 1985 to No. 12, 1986, before being compiled into a separate book. The translations were crafted by Volchek himself, Yaroslav Zimakov, and an individual identified only by the initials ‘S.O.’, who is speculated to be Boris Ostanin (1946-2023), a prominent translator, literary critic, writer, and essayist. Ostanin was a co-editor of the samizdat magazine ‘Chasy’ and one of the co-founders of the Andrei Bely Prize. 
McCullers' first Russian book, ‘Clock Without Hands’, appeared in 1966. Despite sporadic translations and publications of her works in anthologies and separately, McCullers remained relatively unknown to the wider public until recently. The book titled ‘Reflections in a Golden Eye’, containing the novel and stories from this typescript, was only officially published in Russia in 2000.