Victor Pelevin
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-->Victor Pelevin (Russian: Виктор Олегович Пелевин, b. November 22, 1962) is a modern Russian writer, one of the most acclaimed and successful to emerge in the post-Soviet period. His books usually carry the outward conventions of the science fiction genre, however those are used to construct involved, multi-layered postmodernist texts, fusing together elements of pop culture and esoteric philosophies.
After high school Pelevin received a degree in electromechanical engineering from the Moscow Energy Institute, then attended a seminar in creative writing at the Literature Institute. As an editor of "Science and Religion" magazine, he was responsible for an ongoing series of articles on Eastern mysticism.
Pelevin's first story was published in 1989, and for the next 3 years his short stories appeared in various magazines and compilations, making him a prominent figure among the SF "in" crowd and garnering several awards. In 1992 a book of Pelevin's collected stories The Blue Light received the first annual Russian Booker Prize for fiction, and next year his first novel, Omon Ra--a wonderfully surreal satire of the nature of reality in the Soviet state--propelled him from relative obscurity to large print runs and fame practically overnight.
Pelevin cultivates a public persona that shuns the public eye. He rarely gives interviews and is said to have very few friends. He did, however, permit many of his texts to be published on the Internet for non-commercial use.
Pelevin's prose is usually devoid of dialog between the author and the reader, whether through plot, character development, literary form or narrative language, which corresponds to his philosophy (both stated and unstated) that, for the most part, it is the reader who infuses the text with meaning. To make this point, one of his novels bears this inscription on the cover: "Any thought that occurs in the process of reading this book is subject to copyright. Unauthorized thinking of it is prohibited".
Selected bibliography
Short novels
- Omon Ra / Омон Ра (contamination OMON+Amun-Ra) (1991)
- Prince of Central Planning / Принц Госплана (1992)
- The Yellow Arrow / Желтая стрела (1993)
Novels
- The Life of Insects / Жизнь насекомых (1993)
- Buddha's Little Finger (aka Clay Machine-Gun) / Чапаев и Пустота (Chapajev and Emptiness) (1996)
- Babylon (aka Generation Π, Homo Zapiens) / Поколение "П" (1999)
- Numbers (as part of the book DTT(NN) - Dialectics in Times of Transition (from Nowhere into Nothing)) / Числа (часть книги ДПП(NN) - Диалектика Переходного Периода (из Ниоткуда в Никуда)) (2004)
- The Sacred Book of a Werewolf / Священная Книга Оборотня (2005)
- The Helmet of Horror / Шлем ужаса (2006)
Essays, short stories
- The Werewolf Problem in Central Russia / Проблема верволка в средней полосе
- Bulldozer Driver’s Day / День бульдозериста
- Hermit and Sixfinger / Затворник и Шестипалый
- Zombification / Зомбификация
External links
- [Omon Ra - English Translation]
- [Hermit and Sixfinger - English Translation]
- [Chapter One of Buddha's Little Finger] on the website of NY Times
- [pelevin.nov.ru] Collection of Victor Pelevin's works online, in Russian
- [Interview, spring 2002.] In English, from BOMB magazine.
- [Shlem - New Book of Victor Pelevin (Interactive)]
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