China News Service, Beijing, September 23 (Reporter Gao Kai) The "Lightness in Absurdity - New Book Sharing Conference on Sergey Dovlatov's Series" co-sponsored by Writers Publishing House and CITIC Bookstore was recently held in Beijing.
This year marks the 85th anniversary of Dovlatov’s birth. It is understood that the writer's publishing house S Code Bookstore has introduced and published Dovlatov's works on a large scale, launching five works such as "Compromise", "Watcher's Notes", "Women in a Foreign Land", "Branches" and "Protected Area". This is also the first time that Dovlatov's works have been systematically translated and introduced in my country.
Xu Zhi, deputy editor-in-chief of Writers Publishing House, said that Dovlatov is a unique and shining star in the sky of Russian literature. As a representative figure of Russia's "third wave" of expatriate literature, his works do not have Tolstoy-style grand narratives or Dostoyevsky-style soul torture. Instead, with an almost cruel humor and extreme simplicity, his works reveal the essence of modern people's existence - the absurdity of life and the absurdity of survival.
In her speech, Ge Canhong, editor-in-chief of the book series, reviewed the behind-the-scenes stories of this book series from topic selection to publication. She also expressed special thanks to the translators for completing the translation after heavy teaching work. "Translating Dovlatov is a hard job because his language is too simple and clean, and sometimes too clever. Especially some word games and puns, it may take several days to find a satisfactory translation."
During the dialogue session, Qiu Huadong, vice chairman, party member and secretary of the Chinese Writers Association, positioned Dovlatov among the three aesthetic styles of Russian literature: "heavy, medium and light". He believes that writers such as Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy are representatives of "heavy"; during the Soviet period, a group of writers wrote "medium-sized epics" and are representatives of "medium"; and Dovlatov belongs to the "light" lineage. His pages are not large, but it is this lightness that allows him to present the "expanded heaviness" in the Russian-Soviet literary tradition with a small and broad approach.
He believes that Dovlatov's inspiration to Chinese writers lies in: first, whether he can present particularly grand history and grand themes with very light expression; second, the subjectivity that writers should have when facing life - no matter how complicated life is, it is just raw material. Just like the chef and the ingredients, the writer is the chef.
Liu Wenfei, a senior professor at Yanjing Capital Normal University, translator and writer, explained Dovlatov’s status in literary history from four dimensions. First, he is one of the most important Russian-language novelists of the second half of the twentieth century. After writers such as Pasternak and Grossman, novels gradually declined in Russian literature, and "novel began to be squeezed by poetry." Dovlatov's creation showed the novel's resistance to poetry and political commentary during this period. Second, from the perspective of the history of the development of Russian short stories, Dovlatov is the "master" - his novels have the absurdity of Gogol, the humor of Chekhov, the simplicity of Babel, and the pungency of Zolchenko. He combined the strengths of the four most important short story writers of the past into one. Third, from the perspective of Petersburg literary tradition, Dovlatov was once the secretary of Panova, the chairman of the Petersburg Writers Association. Panova's protection of him was equivalent to Akhmatova's protection of Brodsky. Fourth, among the "third wave" diaspora literature, there should be no one who specializes in writing short stories and short stories more than him.
Liu Wenfei also shared his correspondence with Dovlatov’s sister Ksenia Blanc. In his reply, Blanc expressed that he was very happy that Dovlatov's works were published in China and hoped that Chinese readers could enjoy and appreciate Dovlatov's prose, his concise literary style, his sense of humor, and his awareness of the absurdity of life. She also specifically mentioned that Dovlatov’s father was born in Harbin. “He has always had deep feelings for China. He will be very happy if he knows that Dovlatov’s works have been translated into Chinese.”
