Vladimir Sorokin

Vladimir Sorokin (born August 7, 1955, Bykovo, Russia, U.S.S.R.) is a Russian novelist and playwright considered to be one of the most influential figures in postmodern Russian literature. Sorokin is known particularly for his vivid experimental, and often controversial, works that parody the Socialist Realism of the Soviet Union.

After graduating in 1977 with a degree in mechanical engineering from Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in Moscow, Sorokin decided to pursue his interests in graphic art and book design. He eventually illustrated a number of books by authors in Moscow. In the late 1970s he began writing stories of his own and became a part of Moscow’s literary underground, which at that time was dominated by the conceptualist movement. Sorokin, like many of his fellow writers and artists, produced samizdat that parodied the government-sanctioned compositions of Socialist Realism. Several of his short stories were printed in 1985 in A-Ya, a contemporary-art periodical that was produced illegally by the underground in the Soviet Union and published in Paris. Most of his early works, however, found a wide audience after perestroika and the relaxation of censorship in the Soviet Union.

Sorokin’s debut as a novelist came in 1985 with the publication in Paris of Ochered’ (The Queue), a satire on the ordinariness of Soviet life that was written as a string of dialogue between people waiting in line to purchase goods from a store. The Queue, which consists of a formless narrative that fails to attribute dialogue and represents a period of sleep with a series of blank pages, embodies Sorokin’s flair for literary experimentation and his inclination toward the use of nonsensical words and sentences.

Sorokin’s dismantling of grammar and syntax, reminiscent of the exploratory use of language by Irish novelist James Joyce, is especially conspicuous in his later works. The collapse of language in Norma (1994; “The Norm”) and the division of the book into eight structurally distinct parts, one of which simply lists nouns preceded by the word normal’nyy (“normal”), reflect the breakdown of ideology in the novel’s Soviet society. The work, written between 1979 and 1984, demonstrates Sorokin’s talent for the juxtaposition of farce with what he interpreted as senseless, grotesque, or ordinary facets of Soviet life. Other early novels, written largely in the 1980s, were similarly innovative: Roman (1994; “A Novel”), Serdtsa chetyrekh (1994; “Four Hearts”), and Tridtsataya lyubov’ Mariny (1995; “Marina’s Thirtieth Love”).

Sorokin ventured into fantasy and science fiction and continued to push literary boundaries, experimenting with syntax and inventing words, with Goluboe salo (1999; Blue Lard). The book became widely known for its graphic sexual scenes between clones of former Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Joseph Stalin (portrayed as homosexual lovers), which, though whimsical and absurd, resulted in Sorokin’s prosecution by the Russian government for the dissemination of pornography. The charges eventually were dropped, but the incident impassioned Sorokin. After labouring through the trilogy Led (2002; Ice), Put’ bro (2004; Bro), and 23,000 (2005)—published as a single volume, Ice Trilogy, in English—he wrote the critically acclaimed Den’ oprichnika (2006; Day of the Oprichnik), a fantastical work depicting a futuristic dystopian Russia. Metel (2010; The Blizzard) chronicles the travails of a doctor journeying to a zombie-afflicted village with a lifesaving vaccine.

In addition to his novels and short stories, Sorokin wrote plays and screenplays, including Russkaya babushka (1988; “Russian Grandmother”) and Mishen’ (2011, directed by Alexander Zel’dovich; Target). His Sbornik rasskazov (1992; “Collected Stories”) was nominated for a Russian Booker Prize. Sorokin received the Andrey Bely Prize (2001) and the Russian-Italian Gorky Prize (2010).