Olga Bukhina wrote a fascinating piece on the C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia in the Soviet Union. My parents were regular consumers of Samizdat, but I don’t remember seeing the Narnia books in their hands — perhaps, it’s the overtly Christian message that put them off. My parents weren’t interested in religion or science fiction, but I was, and just a few years later I devoured Lord of the Rings when it was officially published in 1991. (Of course, it’s entirely possible that my parents read it without my knowledge. Parents are apt to do things like that…)
https://childlitassn.wixsite.com/intlcommittee/single-post/2019/09/25/Russian-Samizdat-Children%E2%80%99s-Literature-and-the-Sunset-Years-of-the-Soviet-Empire
Narnia was not just a religious threat; in the Soviet context, it was clearly political. The message of these fairytales turned out to be much more dangerous than particular words and images that could be eliminated by censorship. The words of the faun Mr. Tumnus, “It is winter in Narnia, and has been for ever so long… Always winter and never Christmas; think of that,” in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: HarperCollins Publisher, 2001, p. 118), resonated to the reader as an image of the Soviet political winter without any hope for change; the change being symbolized by Christmas.
Published by Olga Zilberbourg
Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. It also dives into topics of bisexuality and immigrant parenthood. Anthony Marra called it “…a book of succinct abundance, dazzling in its particulars, expansive in its scope,” and Karen Bender said, “Olga Zilberbourg is a writer to read right now.”
Zilberbourg’s writing has appeared in World Literature Today, The Believer, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Born in Leningrad, USSR in a Russian-speaking Jewish family, she makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание [Hold Your Breath] from Vremya Press. She serves as a consulting editor at Narrative Magazine and as a co-facilitator of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. Together with Yelena Furman, she has co-founded Punctured Lines, a feminist blog about literature from the former Soviet Union. She is currently at work on her first novel.
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