Oberiu

An Anthology of Russian Absurdism
This poetry anthology includes the work of Russian writers Alexander Vedensky, Daniil Kharms, and Nikolai Zabolotsky who, between 1927 and 1930 made up the core of OBERIU (The Union of Real Art), and of Nikolai Oleinikov, Leonid Lipavsky and Yakov Druskin who worked in the same vein. They offer a reflection of the distorted reality they rejected.
It was a movement so artfully anarchic, and so quickly suppressed, that readers only began to discover its strange and singular brilliance three decades after it was extinguished-and then only in somizdat and emigre publications. Some called it the last of the Russian avant-garde, and others called it the first (and last) instance of Absurdism in Russia: however difficult to classify, it was OBERIU (from an acronym standing for The Union of Real Art), and the pleasures of its poetry and prose are, with this volume, at long last fully open to English-speaking readers. This anthology includes the work of three writers, Alexander Vvedensky, Daniil Kharms, and Nikolai Zabolotsky, who, between 1927 and 1930, made up the core of OBERIU, and of three others, Nikolai Oleinikov, Leonid Lipavsky, and Yakov Druskin, who, although not members of OBERIU, worked in the same vein. Skillfully translated to preserve the weird charm of the originals, these poems and prose pieces display all the hilarity and tragedy, the illogical action and puppetlike violence and eroticism, and the hallucinatory intensity that brought down the wrath of the Soviet censors. Today they offer an uncanny reflection of the distorted reality they reject.

Contributor: Eugene Ostashevsky (Edited by), Genya Turovsky (Contributions by), Ilya Bernstein (Contributions by), Matvei Yankelevich (Other), Susan Sontag (Foreword by), Thomas Epstein (Contributions by), Eugene Ostashevsky (Other)

UK Delivery:

• Free delivery on all orders of £10 or more.
• £1.49 delivery fee on orders below £10.
• UK orders are shipped via Royal Mail 2nd Class.

International Delivery:

• Flat rate delivery charges vary by country.

Dispatch and Delivery Times:

• All orders are shipped from our warehouse in Northampton, UK within 48 hours of receipt during working hours.
• UK mainland orders typically arrive within 3-5 working days via Royal Mail 2nd Class.
• International estimated delivery times:
• Europe & Channel Islands: 7 to 10 working days
• USA: 7 to 15 working days
• Rest of the World: 9 to 21 working days

View our full delivery infomation here.