V. Shalamov’s ‘Cherry Brandy:’ First overseas editions

Abstract

The article examines the history of the overseas publication of Shalamov’s short story ‘Cherry Brandy.’ The first edition appeared in Roman Gul’s NewYork-based journal Noviy Zhurnal, vol. 91 in 1968. In the period from 1966 to 1976, when fifty of Shalamov’s stories were published by Gul, the latter felt unconstrained as their sole editor. The author details Gul’s editing method that reveals the goal to ensure that the text appears smooth and adheres to the narrative tradition of realism — a style very much at odds with Shalamov’s ‘new prose.’ Gul failed to appreciate Shalamov’s structuring of text and his mastery of composition — in short, he did not see it for what it was: a poet’s prose. Mikhail Geller, then working in London, realized how big a blow it was to Shalamov to see his short stories published in a random, unsystematic manner. In 1978, Geller oversaw the publication of Kolyma Tales [Kolymskie rasskazy] by OPI and supplied his foreword to the book, in which he offered an accurate characteristic of Shalamov’s creative method. Comparison of several editions of the short story collection (Gul’s, Geller’s, and later Shalamov’s Collected works) cannot but convince of the importance of addressing the persistent textological issues of Kolyma Tales.