Vyacheslav Repin


Vyacheslav Repin is a French writer of Russian extraction, born 1960 in Tomsk. He writes in French and Russian and is the author of novels, short stories and essays.

Life

Still student, he has been persecuted in the Soviet Union for his political opinions and was asked in 1985 to leave the country, as a consequence of diplomatic talks on a gaz contract concluded at the time between France and the Soviet Union, and of vigorous press campaigns in his favour launched by the French media. Soon after completing his university studies in literature and languages, Vyacheslav Repin translated into Russian a number of ‘subversive’ French and German texts, including Antonin Arthaud’s, which were then widely circulated in hand-typed copies in USSR.

Literary career

Some time went by before he was noticed as a writer, his exile being the main cause of this temporary anonymity. One of his short stories, The last hunting outing of Piotr Andreevich, was eventually published in Russia at the end of the 1990s in several thick literary journals, and noticed by the critics for its ‘touchy’ subject.
His first novel, ', written in France and soon published in Russia by a prestigious publishing house, was a major surprise for the critics: it was unusually wide-ranging, looked at the inner reality of the Russian culture from an unexpected distance, and, furthermore, was entirely at odds with the post-modernists who were then widely popular in Russia.
Novy Mir, :
«I shall begin with what normally people finish - from the main accent: we have possibly before us one of the most interesting text and most important work of these last years...
The Star's Sickness is a massive work. Compared to it, the extensive writings of these last years in Russia look average narratives, and the usual ‘average Russian’ format - a short-story...
It is a pity that this world outlook is lost in Russia. Bad that it does not stay anywhere to put labours to make it return.»
Among his numerous short stories and novellas, Jean et Jacques and The centre of the world are worth a particular mention, as well as existential tales for adults, some of which were published in French.
His novel ',, appeared in France, and later in Russia in a different version, written by the author himself in his native language.
His first two novels were nominated for most of the major literary prizes in Russia.
His last novel of scope, The Chamaeleons,, is currently being . This is a major and important text, dealing with today’s Russia, with war, with the Chechen question, among other issues, in the face of existential problems of our age.
a word from V. Repin :

It has now been twenty-five years since I chose to settle in France. Almost a lifetime! Having lived between two worlds, having experienced the Cold War, the ups and downs of today’s life, I have recently founded a publishing house in Paris – not only to defend and promote a certain type of Literature, but also to share my experience...
The life of French people has become part of my existence. The life of the Russians is of no less concern to me. As any other life, in point of fact, for I am a writer… I believe that I am invested with the duty to contribute to a better understanding of my native country, of which I – at last – have perceived and understood things that are often missed by those who live too closely to its reality and who do not have the benefit of the distance that my second life in France has given me. Things that are also missed by those who live too far. The French reader will ultimately grasp that the problems of Russian life may seem to be ‘rougher’, but only because circumstances and countries are different; the human heart is one and the same, that which makes the human being live and die. Likewise for the Russian reader.
The gap that exists between individual people often comes down, in my opinion, to a question of a different order, but one that brings everything back to the required level of gravity: evil… does it really exist? Has it not entered, too, in the Pantheon of men so highly revered? Quite simply. Is it not the fruit of imagination – human imagination? Surely, men and none other make this world impossible to comprehend and to live in...
Literature will never be a cure. But sometimes it gives more meaning to life than it may seem...