The Russian Reception of Norman Mailer

Authors

  • Victor Peppard University of South Florida Author

Keywords:

transnational literary reception, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, American existentialism, literary translation studies, Russian literature

Abstract

Norman Mailer’s connections with Russian literature, especially with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, are numerous and significant, and they go back to the very beginnings of his career as a writer. Interest in Mailer and his works in Russia shows no signs of subsiding, and much more will continue to be written about him. Several works by Mailer have been translated into Russian: The Naked and the Dead [Nagie i mertye], The Deer Park [Oleinii zapovednik], An American Dream [Amerikanskaia mechta], Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man [Pikasso, portret khudozhnika v iunosti], Tough Guys Don’t Dance [Krutye parni ne tantsuiut], an article on Apollo II in America’s Star Wars [Zvezdnoe voinstvo Ameriki], The Gospel According to the Son [Evangelie ot Syna Bozhiia], Harlot’s Ghost [Prizrak prostitutki], Ancient Evenings [Vechera v drevnosti], and The Castle in the Forest (Lesnoi zamok).

Author Biography

  • Victor Peppard, University of South Florida

    Victor Peppard received his PhD at the University of Michigan in Slavic Languages and Literatures with a specialization in twentieth-century Russian literature. He is Professor of Russian and Chair of World Languages at the University of South Florida and is the author of over two dozen articles and/or book chapters on Russian literature and culture, including work on the history of Russian and Soviet sport. His scholarship also includes a monograph on the Russian writer Yury Olesha and a co-authored book, with James Riordan, on Soviet Sport Diplomacy. He has translated and published Russian fiction and poetry, co-authored a text on the US for Russian students, and has published a handful of short stories.

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Published

2026-10-09

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2013): A Double Life • Mind of an Outlaw

Section

Articles