The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast
Episode 2: The Unknown Man: The Silent Screaming of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
I’m pleased to present “Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Writes in Secret,” Episode 2 of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast. The Soviet author Krzhizhanovsky wrote many short stories and novellas, most of which were never published during his lifetime. It wasn’t until 1989, nearly four decades after Krzhizhanovsky’s death, that they started to trickle into print, at which time it became clear why he chose to hide them! They’re brilliantly imagined stories that were, for many reasons, completely at odds with the authorities at the time. I hope you enjoy this show! As a bonus, NYRB Classics authorized me to present in full Krzhizhanovsky’s “Quadraturin,” so I’m presenting that as Episode 3.
More shows are in the works, most dedicated to a particular time in an author’s career. It should be fun. I hope you’ll check it out!
You can find the show on iTunes and Stitcher and, hopefully, the podcatcher of your choice. You may also listen to it right here by clicking the bar below.
Many thanks again to those who helped make this possible! I’d particularly like to thank Jonathan Pool for joining on Patreon this past month. If you’d like to donate as well, please visit my Patreon page.
Sources and other items of interest:
- The Letter Killers Club, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, with an introduction by Caryl Emerson
- The Return of Munchausen, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, with an introduction by Joanne Turnbull
- Memories of the Future, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, with an introduction by Joanne Turnbull
- Autobiography of a Corpse, by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, with an introduction by Adam Thirlwell
- Hunter of Themes: The Interplay of Word and Thing in the Works of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, by Karen Link Rosenflanz
- “Portrait of a Ghost,” L.A. Review of Books Review of Autobiography of a Corpse
- The Master of the Crossed-Out, Adam Thirwell
- The Arts in Russia under Stalin, Isaiah Berlin
Trevor, thank you for another excellent podcast. I found your comments about your own reading of Krzhizhanovsky even more interesting than your comments on Krzhizhanovsky and his fiction. You’ve moved me to take my copies of Memories of the Future and Autobiography of a Corpse from one to-read pile to another, more immediate to-read pile. But when I tried to read them previously, I noticed that the two slim volumes weigh strangely heavily in my hand. I’m very much looking forward to #3.
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