Solovyov and Larionov

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Although Solovyov and Larionov is Eugene Vodolazkin’s debut novel, it’s the third of his books that I’ve translated for Oneworld. Like Eugene’s Laurus and The Aviator, Solovyov and Larionov is a complex novel, both in terms of language, since the narrative voice is very defined, and content, which blends two time periods and includes a fair bit of history.

Those complexities mean that Eugene’s patient help—reading my manuscript, answering my questions, and simply being his usual humorous and thoughtful self—was more necessary than ever. The three novels fit together so beautifully, forming a sort of triptych, that each one is my favorite in its own right.

Part of the fun of Solovyov and Larionov is in the details, which Eugene cleverly plants throughout the novel so they can come together at the end of the book. Eugene often refers to me as his co-author and this book gave me more opportunities than Laurus and The Aviator, thanks to several passages that we changed significantly, often because translated humor and irony just aren’t very funny when they have to be explained. (Fortunately, nearly all Eugene’s humor and irony translates very nicely into English.) I also adapted the hundreds of footnotes that appeared in the Russian Solovyov and Larionov. Eugene warned me from the start that he was pretty sure I’d need to get rid of them and I confess that I (foolishly) told him most of them could likely stay. That meant it took an epiphany (in the shower) to realize I was wrong and that the novel would maintain its tone, not to mention its continuity, best if I incorporated the footnote information into the text.

Solovyov and Larionov is my fourth book for Oneworld and, as always, I’m grateful to Juliet Mabey for her love of Russian contemporary fiction, and to the team at Oneworld for all their editorial help.

My colleague Liza Prudovskaya read an entire draft of Solovyov and Larionov, comparing it to Eugene’s original. She also answered hundreds of questions about language, tone, and usage, saving me from dozens and dozens of errors of all kinds. I can never thank her enough for her contributions to my translations. Any blunders are, of course, mine, not hers. Finally, Solovyov and Larionov contains quotes from a number of other texts. I’m particularly grateful to Katherine Young, a poet, translator, and friend, who transformed my draft work on lines by Semyon Nadson and Vasily Zhukovsky into real poetry.