The Colonel Says...

... I Love You

Jeden Monat trifft sich die Redakteurin der Fiction-Abteilung des amerikanischen Magazins "The New Yorker" Deborah Treisman mit einem Schriftsteller, der seine Liebslingsgeschichte aus dem Archiv des Magazins vorliest und darüber mit der Redakteurin diskutiert. All diese Lesungen kann man sich regelmäßig als Podcast anhören.

Aufmerksam wurde ich darauf durch den Beitrag "From Russia with Love":

"David Bezmozgis reads Sergei Dovlatov’s “The Colonel Says I Love You” and discusses it with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. Listen to the mp3.(...)
The Colonel Says I Love You” was published in the May 5, 1986, issue of The New Yorker and is collected in the book “Ours: A Russian Family.”" [Quelle]

Über Sergey Dovlatov:

"Sergey Dovlatov (1941-1990) stands out in Russian literature as a most enigmatic man of letter, his works bordering between documentary evidence and play of fancy, between seeming simplicity and inconceivable magnetism, between risque humour and wisdom. His major audiences reside on two continents divided by the Pacific and the oceans of difference.

"Unlike my friends, American writers, I've got not one, but three audiences. I am in a pole position. If I happen not to get on with my Russian publisher in the USA, I say, ok, perhaps I'll be luckier with this book in English. If that doesn't happen either, I've got Soviet reader on stand-by. Actually all emigrant writers hope that the Soviet readers will understand and appreciate them. It's a serious test." - Sergey Dovlatov wrote.

He passed this test for certain. His freedom of thinking was like fresh air for many people in Soviet times and afterwards. Many phrases from his books have turned winged. Though he gained fame only after abandoning his homeland, he is beloved and widely read in Russia and other countries till date.

Sergey Donatovich Dovlatov (Mechik) was born on September 3, 1941, in the city of Ufa where his family was evacuated from Leningrad. His father, Donat Issakovich Mechik (1909-1995), was a stage director and his mother, Nora Sergeyvena Dovlatova (1908-1999), was a literature corrector. In 1944 the family got back to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). In 1959 Sergey entered the Philological Faculty (Finnish language department) of Leningrad State University but in two and a half years his studies were cut short by the army draft.(...)" weiter lesen

• Seine Werke sind in der Originalsprache Russisch u.a. auf http://www.sergeidovlatov.com/litera.html und auf http://dowlatow.chkebelski.de/links_e.html zu lesen.