3 Review(s)

<> (Michael Pushkin, University of Birmingham) <> (Robert Porter, University of Bristol) <> (Christine Engel, University of Innsbruck) This is the first book devoted to the writings of Evgeny Popov (born 1946), a major and controversial figure in the late Soviet and post-Soviet literary landscape. The author uses a wide range of primary and secondary sources, many of them in Russian, alongside detailed analysis of the novels and stories themselves. The introduction charts the course of Popov's personal and professional biography, including major turning points such as the Metropole affair of 1979. A chapter on critical contexts provides a clear account of the history of Popov's reception. Other chapters focus on the first collection of short stories and the complexities of narrative voice, the concept of the 'non-elucidatory principle' at the heart of Popov's poetics, and the short story cycles in Metropole and Catalogue, from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Finally the author addresses the key phenomenon of Popov's self-fictionalization in both his shorter and longer works up to the present day.