Aksyonov, Vasily
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1932-2009) Russian author (see Mainstream Writers of SF), one of those whose careers began in the Khrushchev Thaw; he responded to the subsequent chill by emigrating to the USA in 1980, where he became a citizen, and where he taught at several universities before 2004, when he returned to Russia. He wrote two sf novels: Ozhog: roman v trekh knigakh (written late 1960s/early 1970s; 1980; trans Michael Glenny as The Burn: A Novel in Three Books 1984) plays with Reincarnation and Alternate History tropes in the course of tracking various versions of one protagonist through various eras; Ostrov Krym (1979; trans Michael Henry Heim as The Island of Crimea 1983) [for further details see Checklist below] is a powerful Alternate History story set in a Crimea which is an Island (not, as in this world, a peninsula), and where a pre-revolutionary government has survived a 1920 Invasion from the mainland. The real-life model is obviously China/Taiwan; generations later, a grotesquely decadent materialist and capitalist Crimea, its citizens bewitched by the charisma of Mother Russia, long to reunite. Skazhi izium (1985; trans Anonina W Bouis as Say Cheese! 1989) is a surreal Fabulation; Quest for an Island (coll trans various hands 1987) assembles fantasies and plays. [VG/JC]
Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov
born Kazan, USSR: 20 August 1932
died Moscow: 6 July 2009
works
- Ozhog: roman v trekh knigakh (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, 1980) [hb/]
- The Burn: A Novel in Three Books (New York: Random House, 1984) [trans by Michael Glenny of the above: hb/]
- L'île de Crimée ["The Island of Crimea"] (Paris: Gallimard, 1980) [French translation from Russian manuscript: binding unknown/]
- Ostrov Krym (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, 1981) [first publication in original Russian: hb/]
- The Island of Crimea (New York: Random House, 1983) [trans by Michael Henry Heim of the above: hb/]
- Ostrov Krym (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, 1981) [first publication in original Russian: hb/]
- Skazhi izium: roman v moskovskikh traditsiiakh (Ann Arbor, Michigan: Ardis, 1985) [hb/]
- Say Cheese! (Nashville, Tennessee: Aurora Publishers, 1989) [trans by Antonina W Bouis of the above: hb/]
- Quest for an Island (New York: PAJ Publishing, 1987) [coll: trans by various hands of various items: hb/Anthony Russo]
links
previous versions of this entry