Liudmila Petrushevskaia [Ludmila Petrushevskaya] is considered one of the most important contemporary Russian authors, whose writings combine postmodernist trends with the psychological insights and parodic touches found in the works of Gogol, Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov and Bulgakov. Some critics categorise Petrushevskaia as an existentialist who depicts Russia as a spiritual wasteland populated by victims of the communist regime and of the social injustice of the Russian capitalism of the 1990s. Petrushevskaia’s works often blend tragic overtones with subversive laughter. In a Bakhtinian manner, she embraces the notion of a carnival world that is governed by a utopian anti-politics that enables the laughing away of repression, subversion and marginalisation. Thus in her…
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Citation: Smith, Alexandra. "Liudmila Petrushevskaia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 February 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11693, accessed 25 November 2024.]
