The Parallel Universes of David Shrayer-Petrov

Roman Katsman was born in the USSR and has lived in Israel since 1990. He is a Professor in the Department of Literature of the Jewish People in Bar-Ilan University. Katsman is the author of number of books and articles about Hebrew and Russian literature, particularly about Jewish-Russian and Russian-Israeli literature and thought. He has worked on the theoretical problems of mythopoesis, chaos, nonverbal communication, sincerity, alternative history, and humor. His most recent books, Elusive Reality: A Hundred Years of Russian-Israeli Literature (1920-2020), (2020, in Russian) and Nostalgia for a Foreign Land (2016, in English), examine the Russian-language literature in Israel. Other major publication include Laughter in Heaven: Symbols of Laughter in the Works of S.Y. Agnon, in Hebrew (2018), Literature, History, Choice: The Principle of Alternative History in Literature (2013), At the Other End of Gesture. Anthropological Poetics of Gesture in Modern Hebrew Literature (2008), Poetics of Becoming: Dynamic Processes of Mythopoesis in Modern and Postmodern Hebrew and Slavic Literature (2005), The Time of Cruel Miracles: Mythopoesis in Dostoevsky and Agnon (2002) and others.Shrayer Maxim D. :

Maxim D. Shrayer, translingual author, scholar and translator, was born in Moscow and emigrated in 1987 with his parents, David Shrayer-Petrov and Emilia Shrayer. He is Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College and Director of the Project on Russian and Eurasian Jewry at the Davis Center, Harvard University. Shrayer is the author and editor of over 15 books of criticism and biography, fiction and nonfiction, and poetry. His books include The World of Nabokov’s Stories, Russian Poet/Soviet Jew, Yom Kippur in Amsterdam, Bunin and Nabokov: A History of Rivalry (which was a bestseller in Russia), Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, and, most recently, Antisemitism and the Decline of Russian Village Prose and Of Politics and Pandemics: Songs of a Russian Immigrant. He is the editor of An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature and Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature. Shrayer is a Guggenheim Fellow and the winner of a National Jewish Book Award. Shrayer’s works have appeared in ten languages.Smola Klavdia :

Klavdia Smola, a Moscow-born scholar, is Professor and Chair of Slavic Literatures and Cultures at the Department of Slavic Studies, University of Dresden (Germany). She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of Tübingen, taught at the University of Greifswald, and was research fellow at the universities of Jerusalem, Moscow, Barcelona, Constance and Cracow. She authored the books Types and Patterns of Intertextuality in the Prose of Anton Chekhov (2004, in German) and Reinvention of Tradition: Contemporary Russian-Jewish Literature (2019, in German). Smola co-edited Jewish Underground Culture in the late Soviet Union (Special Issue of the journal East European Jewish Affairs, 2018); Russia—Culture of (Non-)Conformity: From the Late Soviet Era to the Present (Special Issue of the journal Russian Literature, 2018, with Mark Lipovetsky); Postcolonial Slavic Literatures after Communism (2016, together with Dirk Uffelmann); Jewish Spaces and Topographies in East-Central Europe: Constructions in Literature and Culture (2014, in German, tgether with Olaf Terpitz), and Eastern European Jewish Literatures of the 20th and 21st Centuries: Identity and Poetics (2013).

“This book, devoted to the prose and poetry of the brilliant Jewish-Russian writer David Shrayer-Petrov, both from his Soviet and his American periods, is more than a collection of essays. The first book devoted to the works of Shrayer-Petrov, it is a thoroughly conceived and impressively structured full-length study of Shrayer-Petrov's literary exploration of Russian and Soviet Jewry. The nuanced psychological reflection, sharp socio-historical vision and high aesthetic qualities of Shrayer-Petrov’s literary works make them of significant interest both to those who self-identify with the refuseniks’ worldview and to those who oppose it on political or ethical grounds. The same is true of The Parallel Worlds of David Shrayer-Petrov. Bringing together a powerful group of scholars, among them some of the leading students of Russian-Jewish culture, this is an outstanding study which is bound to attract the attention of different audiences, with diverse personal experiences, worldviews, and convictions.”

—Dennis Sobolev, University of Haifa; author of Jerusalem and The Split World of Gerard Manley Hopkins: An Essay in Semiotic Phenomenology

“The book contextualizes, analyzes, and celebrates the work of a non-conformist writer who for several decades explored the thought, the feel, and the fantasy of Russian-Soviet-Jewish, Jewish-refusenik, and Jewish-immigrant-American experience. The studies collected in this volume discuss the ways in which the hyphenated literary identity of David Shrayer-Petrov enters an interface with a variety of intellectual communities without catering to their biases or expectations.”

—Leona Toker, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; author of Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intertextual Reading and Nabokov: The Mystery of Literary Structures

“This fascinating collection provides many insights into one of the finest poets and an outstanding writer, David Shrayer-Petrov, who made a significant contribution to Russian and Jewish cultures. This multi-facing study explores many topics—from Shrayer-Petrov’s life, his variety of themes, genres, and styles to textual and cultural sources of his poems, short stories, and novels. Many essays illuminate the brilliant mind and the innovations of David Shrayer-Petrov. The bibliography compiled by his son Maxim D. Shrayer is a vital contribution to this book and helps to appreciate the outstanding achievements this poet, writer and translator. The Parallel Universes of David Shrayer-Petrov the best thing written about the writer and an essential reading for all who are not indifferent to literature and culture.”

—Valentina Polukhina, University of Keele; author of Joseph Brodsky: A Poet for Our Time and Brodsky Through the Eyes of His Contemporaries