Brodsky Through the Eyes of His Contemporaries (Vol 2) (Studies in Russian and Slavic Literatures, Cultures, and History, Volume 2) - Hardcover

Polukhina, Valentina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1934843164 ISBN 13: 9781934843161

Publisher: Academic Studies Press, 2008

Synopsis

In the new second volume of Brodsky Through the Eyes of His Contemporaries, the collection of interviews features eye-witness accounts of Joseph Brodsky’s friends and family members, publishers, editors, translators, students, and fellow poets including John Le Carre, Oleg Tselkov, Petr Vail, Bengt Jangfeldt, Susan Sontag, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and others. This collection of 40 interviews illuminates an intriguing contemporary phenomenon and affords a fascinating insight into the American literary scene. Continuing the discussion begun in the first volume, this series of interviews contains important discussions on the style, ideas, and personality of one of the most brilliant and paradoxical poets of our time. Subtle, incisive, and rigorous in its critical evaluation, each discussion significantly advances our understanding of Brodsky's complex poetic world. All discussions are linked by core questions that are carefully and sometimes provocatively formulated. The interviews are published together with many unique photographs from the private archives of the author and the interviewees.

About this title

About the Author

Valentina Polukhina is Professor Emeritus of Russian Literature at Keele University, England and the author of several major studies of Brodsky: Joseph Brodsky: A Poet for Our Time (CUP, 1989), Brodsky Through the Eyes of his Contemporaries, vol. I (St Martin’s Press, 1992); a Russian version Brodskii glazami sovremennikov (vol. I, 1997, 2006) and A Dictionary of Brodsky’s Tropes (Tartu University Press, 1995). She is editor of a collection of Brodsky’s interviews - Large Book of Interviews (Bol’shaya kniga intervyu) (2000, 2005, 2007); with Lev Loseff, of Brodsky’s Poetics and Aesthetics (1990) and Joseph Brodsky: The Art of a Poem (1999, 2002), with A. Stepanov and I. Fomenko, of Brodsky’s Poetics ("Poetika Brodskogo", Tver, 2003), with A. Korchinsky – Joseph Brodsky: A Strategy of Reading ("Iosif Brodkii: Strategiya chteniya", Moscow, 2005). Among her articles we can find essays on Akhmatova, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Khlebnikov, Mandelshtam, Shcherbina, Gorbanevskaya, etc. She had edited bilingual collections of Olga Sedakova (1994), Oleg Prokofiev (1995), Dmitry Prigov (1995), Evgeny Rein (2001). Recently a second volume Brodsky Through the Eyes of his Contemporaries was republished in St Petersburg (SPb, Zvezda, 2006).

Review

''A poet like Joseph Brodsky is lucky to find a critic who shares his staggering breadth and depth of reading and his capacity for relating to one another traditions that at first appear to be utterly incompatible: the past and present of Russian poetry, the west and the east of European culture, Hellenic, Christian and existential modes of thought.'' --Professor Donald Rayfield in his review of Valentina Polukhina's book Joseph Brodsky: a Poet for our Time, Times High Educational Supplement, 16 February,1990.

''Polukhina has been investigating her subject for at least ten years, the thoroughness of her research and the breadth of her knowledge (encompassing not only Brodsky but all modern Russian poetry) are formidable and everywhere evident.'' --Professor David Bethea, an author of Joseph Brodsky and the Creation of Exile from his review of Valentina Polukhina's book Joseph Brodsky: a Poet for our Time in the Slavic and East European Journal, 1991.

''Valentina Polukhina has been studying Joseph Brodsky's poetry and prose for the last 20 years, and her knowledge knows no bounds. Brodsky is very fortunate to have so dedicated a scholar, thoughtful, profound, highly sensitive, tactful, indefatigable.'' --Peter Vail

''Polukhina has been investigating her subject for at least ten years, the thoroughness of her research and the breadth of her knowledge (encompassing not only Brodsky but all modern Russian poetry) are formidable and everywhere evident.'' --Professor David Bethea, an author of Joseph Brodsky and the Creation of Exile from his review of Valentina Polukhina's book Joseph Brodsky: a Poet for our Time in the Slavic and East European Journal, 1991.

''Valentina Polukhina has been studying Joseph Brodsky's poetry and prose for the last 20 years, and her knowledge knows no bounds. Brodsky is very fortunate to have so dedicated a scholar, thoughtful, profound, highly sensitive, tactful, indefatigable.'' --Peter Vail

Edition details

• Publisher: Academic Studies Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1934843164
• ISBN 13: 9781934843161
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 620