Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky: Клуб убийц букв (The Letter Killers Club)

The latest addition to my website is Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky‘s Клуб убийц букв (The Letter Killers Club). A successful author who has succeeded because he got rid of all his books and was influenced by only what he recalled or imagined the books said has now now formed a club with other authors where the written word is banned and they each tell stories subverting traditional genres, from a deconstruction of Hamlet with multiple Hamlets and Guildenstern split into two characters, to a parody of old German Baron Munchausen style tales. We have a story of three mouths and a character resurrecting a method according to which a text is found and fitted to a piece of music after it has been composed. The book was written in 1926 but Soviet censors refused to allow it to be published. Fortunately those of us who are not Social Realists can enjoy its wit and cleverness.

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