Vladimir Sorokin
Vladimir Georgiyevich Sorokin is a postmodern Russian writer of novels, short stories, and plays.
He has been described as one of the leading and most popular writers in contemporary Russian literature. Sorokin became known for his provocative and satirical works combining elements of dystopia, alternative history and science fiction, and the grotesque. One of Sorokin's recognisable literary techniques is stylistic mimicry, he imitates various literary styles, from socialist realism to classical Russian prose.
In Russia, Vladimir Sorokin's works have many times become the subject of public discussion, including lawsuits. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he has been living in exile in Berlin.
Biography
Sorokin was born on 7 August 1955 in Bykovo, Ramensky District, Moscow Oblast. In 1972, he made his literary debut with a publication in the newspaper Za kadry neftyanikov. He studied at the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in Moscow and graduated in 1977 as an engineer.After graduation, he worked as illustrator for one year for the magazine Shift, before he had to leave due to his refusal to become a member of the Komsomol.
Throughout the 1970s, Sorokin participated in a number of art exhibitions and designed and illustrated nearly 50 books. Sorokin's development as a writer took place amidst painters and writers of the Moscow underground scene of the 1980s. In 1985, six of Sorokin's stories appeared in the Paris magazine A-Ya. In the same year, French publisher Syntaxe published his novel Ochered'.
Sorokin is a devout Christian, having been baptized at the age of 25.
Sorokin's works, examples of underground nonconformist art, including his first novel The Norm, were banned during the Soviet pre-Perestroika period. His first publication in the USSR appeared in November 1989, when the Riga-based Latvian magazine Rodnik presented a group of Sorokin's stories. Soon after, his stories appeared in Russian literary miscellanies and magazines Tretya Modernizatsiya, Mitin Zhurnal, Konets Veka, and Vestnik Novoy Literatury. In 1992, Russian publishing house Russlit published Sbornik Rasskazov – Sorokin's first book to be nominated for a Russian Booker Prize. Sorokin's early stories and novels are characterized by the combination of socialist-realist discourse with extreme physiological or absurd content; Sorokin himself has described his early writings as "little binary literary bombs made up of two incompatible parts: one socialist realist, and the other based on actual physiology, resulting in an explosion, and this gave me, the writer, a little spark of freedom."
In September 2001, Vladimir Sorokin received the People's Booker Prize; two months later, he was presented with the Andrei Bely Prize for outstanding contributions to Russian literature. In 2002, there was a protest against his book Blue Lard, and he was investigated for pornography.
His 2006 novel, Day of the Oprichnik, describes a dystopian Russia in 2027, with a Tsar in the Kremlin, a Russian language with numerous Chinese expressions, and a "Great Russian Wall" separating the country from its neighbors. In 2015, he was awarded the Premio Gregor von Rezzori for this novel. Already in 2011 he had received the second prize of the Russian Big Book award for The Blizzard ; three years later, he received another second prize for Telluria.
In 2016 he was accused by pro-Kremlin activists of "extremism", "pro-cannibalism themes" and "going against Russian Orthodox values" because of his satirical short story "Nastya", which describes how a 16-year-old is cooked alive in an oven and eaten by her family and friends.
Sorokin's books have been translated into English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Korean, Romanian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Czech, Hungarian, Croatian and Slovenian, and are available through a number of prominent publishing houses, including Gallimard, Fischer, DuMont, BV Berlin, Haffman, Mlinarec & Plavic and Verlag der Autoren.
In December 2019, Russian filmmaker Ilya Belov released the documentary "Sorokin Trip" in which he portrayed and examined the writer's life and work. The film was nominated for Best Documentary for The Golden Unicorn Awards in 2019.
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Three days after the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sorokin published a piece highly critical of Vladimir Putin. In it he compared Putin to Ivan the Terrible and power in Russia to a medieval pyramid. He wrote: "The idea of restoring the Russian Empire has entirely taken possession of Putin," and he faulted the destruction of the TV channel NTV for providing an opening. "Putin didn’t manage to outgrow the KGB officer inside of him, the officer who’d been taught that the USSR was the greatest hope for the progress of mankind and that the West was an enemy capable only of corruption."For Sorokin, Putin's ultimate goal is not Ukraine but the dismemberment of NATO and the destruction of Western civilization.
In March 2022, Sorokin was among the signatories of an appeal by eminent writers to all Russian speakers to spread the truth inside Russia about the war against Ukraine.
Following Sorokin's criticism of the Russian government, his books have been withdrawn from a number of Russian booksellers.
Novels and novellas
Норма. The Norm, trans. Max Lawton- Очередь. The Queue, trans. Sally Laird
- Тридцатая любовь Марины. Marina’s 30th Love, trans. Max Lawton Роман. Roman, trans. Max Lawton Сердца Четырех. Their Four Hearts, trans. Max Lawton Голубое Сало. Blue Lard, trans. Max Lawton Лёд. Ice, trans. Jamey Gambrell Путь Бро. Bro, trans. Jamey Gambrell.23'000. 23,000, trans. Jamey Gambrell.День опричника. Day of the Oprichnik, trans. Jamey Gambrell Сахарный кремль. The Sugar Kremlin, trans. Max Lawton Метель. The Blizzard, trans. Jamey Gambrell Теллурия. Telluria, trans. Max Lawton Манарага. ManaragaДоктор Гарин. Doctor GarinНаследие. Legacy
- Ice Trilogy. Bro, Ice, and 23,000 published together in one volume.
Short fiction
Collections- Первый субботник. The First Subotnik / My First Working Saturday
- Месяц в дахау. A Month in Dachau
- Пир. Feast
- Заплыв. Swim
- Моноклон. Monoclonius
- Белый квадрат. The White Square
- Русские народные пословицы и поговорки. Russian folk proverbs and sayingsDe feminis.Red Pyramid and Other Stories, trans. Max Lawton Dispatches from the District Committee, trans. Max Lawton
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
| Red Pyramid | 2021 | |||
| Nastya | 2022 |
Plays
Пельмени. PelmeniЗемлянка. The DugoutРусская бабушка. Russian GrandmotherДоверие. ConfidenceДисморфомания. DysmorphomaniaЮбилей. AnniversaryHochzeitsreise. The Post-Nuptial JourneyЩи. ShchiDostoevsky-Trip.С Новым Годом. Happy New YearКапитал. CapitalЗанос. ''The Snow Drift''Film scripts
Безумный Фриц . Directors: Tatiana Didenko and Alexander Shamaysky.Москва . Director: Alexander Zeldovich. First Prize in the festival in Bonn; Award of Federation of Russian Film-Clubs for best Russian movie of the year.Копейка . Director: Ivan Dykhovichny. Nomination for Zolotoy Oven Award for best film script.Вещь . Director: Ivan Dykhovichny.4 . Director: Ilya Khrzhanovsky. Grand Jury Prize of International Film Festival Rotterdam.Мишень . Director: Alexander Zeldovich.Other works
- Photograph album В глубь России, in cooperation with painter Oleg Kulik.
- Libretto for opera Дети Розенталя, with music by Leonid Desyatnikov; written on request of the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow.Нормальная история, a collection of Sorokin's essays written in the 2010s.
- Dozens of stories published in Russian and foreign periodicals.