Featured titles
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The Goatibex Constellation, a novel by Fazil Iskander (1966)
Published by: Czech Republic - Svet sovetu (1968), Estonia - Perioodika (1967), France - Les Editeurs Francais Reunis (1972), Germany - Volk und Welt (1968), Piper (1973), Verlag der Nation (1984), Hungary - Magveto (1968), Poland - Iskry (1971), Japan - Gunzosha (1985), Italy - Sellerio di Giorgianni (1988), Latvia - Liesma (1968), The Netherlands - Van Oorschot (1980), Slovakia - Obzor (1967), Sweden - AWE/Geber (1977), Romania - Colectia Meridiane (1968), Turkey - Hurriyet (1974), USA - ARDIS (1975), Overlook Press (2015)
Sozvezdie kozlotura (variously translated as "The Goatibex Constellation," "The Constellation of the Goat-Buffalo," and "Constellation of Capritaurus") is written from the point of view of a young newspaperman who returns to his native Abkhazia, joins the staff of a local newspaper, and is caught up in the publicity campaign for a newly produced farm animal, a cross between a goat and a West Caucasian tur (Capra caucasica).
Iskander's "remarkable satire of Lysenko's genetics and Khrushchev's agricultural campaigns, it was harshly criticized for showing the Soviet Union in a bad light." (Karen L. Ryan-Hayes, Contemporary Russian Satire: A Genre Study, Cambridge University Press, 2006).
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The Portrait and Around, a novel by Vladimir Makanin (1978)
Rights sold: Czech - Svoboda, Germany - Aufbau
In his 1978 The Portrait and Around (Portret i vokrug) Makanin pinpoints a major problem for the Russian intelligent; namely, his inability to recognize his guilt. The Portrait and Around revolves around a ‘man of the sixties’, Starokhatov, a man who abuses his position as a well-known scriptwriter and producer to sign his name to scripts written by novice authors. Starokhatov is no monster (he is capable of generous, even noble acts), but his ability to create a false, successful self-image through his plagiarism points not only to his lack of ethics, but to his lack of identity. Identity is a major problem for the main character in this novel, Igor Petrovich, who becomes involved in the Starokhatov case when a friend asks him to help create a ‘portrait’ of the man. Igor uncovers evidence of Starokhatov’s theft of scripts but finds himself unable to take any action against the man. This is not only due to an intelligent's ineffectuality; Starokhatov tells Igor that he ‘sees himself’ in Starokhatov, whose criminality he has exposed. Starokhatov suggests one possible motivation for lgor's inability to act; for Igor, laying charges against this man would be like indicting himself; and he cannot accept his own criminality.
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