Iliazd’s Lost Modernist Masterpiece
All week we have been sharing excerpts from our Russian Library series in honor of Russian Literature Week. Today, for #TranslationThursday, we’re sharing two excerpts for your reading enjoyment.
First up, we have an excerpt from Iliazd’s novel Rapture. If you are in New York City, translator Thomas Kitson has curated an exhibit of Iliazd’s work and designs on view at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library through July 12, 2019.
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Rapture: A Novel by Iliazd. Translated by Thomas J. Kitson
Iliazd is the the nom de plume of writer and artist Ilia Zdanevich, who is perhaps best remembered as an artist and bookmaker who worked with Pablo Picaso, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, and Alberto Giacometti. His novel Rapture, a fast paced adventure-romance that mythologizes the life of the Russian avant-garde, was overlooked when it was first published in Russian in Paris in 1930. Censored for decades in the Soviet Union, the book was nearly lost.
Want to read more? You can find more excerpts from our Russian Library series on ISSUU.
