I Am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary : The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms

“I am a Phenomenon Quite out of the Ordinary” offers a fascinating look into the life and mind of poet and prose miniaturist Daniil Kharms (1905- 1942). One of the legendary figures of the “Last Soviet Avant-Garde,” Kharms was the tutelary spirit of “Russia’s lost literature of the absurd.” His work, rescued from oblivion by a dedicated group of friends and scholars, has attained an almost cult-like status among present-day Russia’s literary elite. In this volume, Anthony Anemone and Peter Scotto translate a wide-ranging selection of materials from Kharms’ private notebooks, diaries, letters, and even documents from the KGB archives detailing Kharms’ tragic end in a psychiatric prison hospital—most never before published in English. This is essential reading for anyone interested in Russian literature, Soviet culture, and the inner workings of the mind of a quirky genius.

Anthony Anemone (PhD University of California, Berkeley) is associate professor of Russian language and literature at The New School. He is the author of numerous articles on modern Russian literature and cinema, and the editor of Just Assassins: The Culture of Terrorism in Russia (Northwestern UP 2010).

Peter Scotto (PhD University of California, Berkeley) is professor of Russian language and literature at Mount Holyoke College. He has published many articles on Russian poetry and prose, and his translation of Aleksandr Blok’s The Twelve appeared in the St. Petersburg Review in 2012.