Publisher Description

A writer who defies categorization, Daniil Kharms has come to be regarded as an essential artist of the modernist avant-garde. His writing, which partakes of performance, narrative, poetry, and visual elements, was largely suppressed during his lifetime, which ended in a psychiatric ward where he starved to death during the siege of Leningrad. His work, which survived mostly in notebooks, can now be seen as one of the pillars of absurdist literature, most explicitly manifested in the 1920s and '30s Soviet Union by the OBERIU group, which inherited the mantle of Russian futurism from such poets as Vladimir Mayakovsky and VelimirKhlebnikov. This selection of prose and poetry provides the most comprehensive portrait of the writer in English translation to date, revealing the arc of his career and including a particularly generous selection of his later work.

Author Biography

Daniil Kharms (1905–1942) was a major figure in twentieth-century Russian and Soviet literature. An enigmatic and genre-bending artist, he was among the most significant voices in what came to be known as the literature of Russian absurdism.

Alex Cigale was awarded an NEA Literary Translation Fellowship in 2015. His translations from Russian and his original poetry in English have appeared in such journals as the New England Review, PEN America, TriQuarterly, and World Literature Today.

Table of Contents

SELECTED PROSE: The Early Years (1928-1933) From the Notebooks, 1928 Once upon a time, a fly (The Family Gibberundum), 1929-1930 The Sabre, 1929 A tramcar was running down the tracks, 1930 We lay on the bed, 1930 Let us look out of the window, 1930 Beaverson was walking down the road, 1930 Theme for a Story: A certain engineer, 1929-1930 The Whorld, 1930 I want to tell you about a series of events, 1930 Once upon a time Andrey Vasilievich..., 1931 The Power of Words, 1931 I was sitting on the roof of the State Publishing House, 1931 How strange it is, how inexpressibly strange, 1931 Morning ("Yes, today I saw a dream about a dog...."), 1931 I am sitting here on a stool, 1931 Is it possible to reach the moon by throwing a stone, 1931 Olga Forsh approached Alexei Tolstoy, 1931 At 2 o''clock past midday on Nevsky Prospect, 1931 Before I enter, I will knock, 1931 Numbers cannot be defined by their sequence, 1932 The infinite; that is the answer to all questions, 1932 Himmel''kumov was staring at a young lady, 1931-1933 From the Notebooks, 1933, 1935 The Middle Years (1934-1938) Two Letters to Klavdia Vasilyevna [Pugacheva], 1933 Letter to Anonymous, in Kursk, 1933 Then everyone began to speak in their own private language, 1933-1934 A Knight in Shining Armor, 1934-1936 A little old man was scratching himself, 1933-1934 Andrey Semeonovich spat into a cup, 1934 I was born among the cat-tails, 1934 ... Everyone thinks I''m a genius, 1934-1936 The personal inner turmoil of a certain musician, 1935-1936 The window, shuttered with a curtain, 1935 An Unexpected Binge, 1935 Sweet Little Lida, 1935 You see - he said - I have been watching, 1935 A Terrifying Death, 1935 When the wife goes away, 1935 "And now I will tell you how I was born....", 1935 The Incubation Period, 1935 One personage, wringing her hands from sorrow, 1935 A Fable, 1935 The Carpenter Kushakov, 1935 There once lived a man, and his name was Kuznetsov, 1935 So, my sweet little Lena, 1935 The Brave Hedgehog, 1935 From the Notebooks, mid-1930s The Fate of the Professor''s Wife, 1936 What Happened to Petrakov, 1936 An Occurrence, 1936 A certain mechanic decided to stand at work, 1936 The Cashier Woman, 1936 Father and Daughter, 1936 Petya Nailor was pacing around the apartment, 1936 Kulakov squeezed himself into a deep armchair, 1936 One man went to sleep with faith, 1936-1937 Two men got to talking, 1936-1937 The Rat, 1936-1937 I detest children, second half of 1930s The Blue Notebook No. 10, 1937 One man, no longer wishing to eat split peas, 1937 Precisely 56 years ago, 1935-1937 Tumbling Babushkas (Excessive Curiosity), 1937 Connection, 1937 How one man fell to pieces, 1938 The Four-Legged Crow, 1938 The Late Years (1939-1941) From the Diaries, 1937-1938 I raised the dust..., 1939 Fedya Davidovich, 1939 The Old Woman, 1939 A Brick, 1939-1940 A Treatise, More or Less in the Spirit of Emerson, 1939 Knights ("House full of old women"), 1940 A Genuine Lover of Nature, 1939-1940 Perechin [Mr. Contrarian], 1940 Mouseman''s [Myshin''s] Victory, 1940 How easy it is for a man to become lost..., 1940 An Obstacle, 1940 A Lecture, 1940 The Power of, 1940 The Descent (Nearby and Far Away), 1940 A certain graphologist, 1940 All people love money, 1940 The Conversationalists, 1940 It was summertime, late 1930s The Good Doctor, 1940 One man was chasing another..., 1940 The Adventures of Mr. Caterpillar , 1940 The streets were becoming immersed in silence, 1940 A man of average height [A Lynching], 1940 Trunk [A Hard Case], 1940 Northern Fable, 1940 Symphony No. 2, 1941 A young man who had surprised the watchman, undated Selected Poems (1927-1939) Society of friends of chamber music, 1927 You can sew..., 1931 In the name of the Farher, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 1931 The wise are guided by a split sec, 1933 Seated at a table, flighty thoughts, 1930-1933 Before me hangs a portrait, 1933 Having slammed shut the tome, 1933 Dear manager of moneys, mid-1930s Then even a wife will not save you, mid-1930s The Permanence of Rejoicing and of Dirt, 1933 King of the Universe, 1934 It is your part to god-create me, 1935 Chorus, 1935 Immersed in their thoughts people scrum, 1933-1936 Money is for saving time, 1935 Thoughts Regarding a Girl [396] To Oleinikov, 1935 To an Anonymous Natasha, 1935 Dream of Two Ladies in Blackface, 1936 A quiet evening thus descends, 1936 A Pleasant Little Walk, 1935-1937 Yes, I''m a poet forsaken by the sky, 1935-1937 Once Petrov went to the forest, 1936 In every church bell there is spite, 1936 Variations {"Among the Guests"), 1936 The night sky pales and starts to brighten, 1936 Upon the river floats a boat, 1936 The days are fleeing like fleet swifts, 1936 I love at times to look out the window, 1936-37 Dear Lord, feed me on your flesh, 1937 Your dreams will destroy you, 1937 I am incapable of thinking smoothly, 1937 The end''s here, my strength expires, 1937 We have been killed in the field of life, 1937 My friend fell in a laughable tub, 1937 We - are people, You - are gods, 1937 I was watching a slowly eyelid, 1937 Earlier today I will go to bed, 1937 This is how hunger begins, 1937 Satisfying to tear stirrups with one''s teeth, 1937-1938 A thing of beauty, endearing indeed, 1938 A Very Terrifying Tale, 1938 The Sensual Woodsman, 1938 They shoved me under the table, 1938 I thought of eagles for a long time, 1939

Review

"[A] profound and subtle testament to Kharms and his brutal era." - Times Literary Supplement

Review Quote

" Russian Absurd is not only a fitting introduction

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