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The Man Who Couldn't Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being

Translated by Marian Schwartz, By (author) Olga Slavnikova, Introduction by Mark Lipovetsky

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normal price: R 511.95

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| book description |

In the chaos of early-1990s Russia, the wife and stepdaughter of a paralyzed veteran conceal the Soviet Unionâ€™s collapse from him in order to keep himâ€”and his pensionâ€”alive until it turns out the tough old man has other plans. Olga Slavnikovaâ€™s The Man Who Couldnâ€™t Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a lifeâ€”and the means and meaning of their own livesâ€”by creating a world that doesnâ€™t change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled. After her stepfatherâ€™s stroke, Marina hangs Brezhnevâ€™s portrait on the wall, edits the Pravda articles read to him, and uses her media connections to cobble together entire newscasts of events that never happened. Meanwhile, her mother, Nina Alexandrovna, can barely navigate the bewildering new world outside, especially in comparison to the blunt reality of her uncommunicative husband. As Marina is caught up in a local election campaign that gets out of hand, Nina discovers that her husband is conspiring as wellâ€”to kill himself and put an end to the charade. Masterfully translated by Marian Schwartz, The Man Who Couldnâ€™t Die is a darkly playful vision of the lost Soviet past and the madness of the post-Soviet world that uses Russiaâ€™s modern history as a backdrop for an inquiry into larger metaphysical questions.