Viktor Pelevin

Rajendra Chitnis (University of Bristol)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

Born 22 Nov 1962
Activity 1989-ongoing

Places

Born in Russia
Active in Russia

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Pelevin's Works

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Viktor Pelevin is undoubtedly the best known fiction writer to have emerged in Russian literature since the fall of the Communism. In a series of novels and short stories published in the 1990s he captured the

zeitgeist

with his exuberant satire of Soviet and post-Soviet society. His works are couched in the trendy language of Western postmodernism, science fiction, as well as pop-Buddhism, Eastern mysticism, Japanese Manga comics and ironic-nostalgic Socialist Realist parody, but consciously in the tradition of Nikolai Gogol and the 1920s avant-garde. At the same time, the publication history and reception of his work to date (August 2005) epitomises the shift in Russian literary culture from a journal- and critic-led process to a consumer-led market.

Pelevin is one of the few writers

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1548 words

Citation: Chitnis, Rajendra. "Viktor Pelevin". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 September 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5589, accessed 22 November 2024.]