March 22, 2010 – Reading the World Conversation Series: Helen Anderson & Konstantin Gurevich

And below is some more info the first new Reading the World event, coming up very soon on Monday, March 22. Click to enlarge:

MARCH 22, 2010
6:00 p.m.
Hawkins-Carlson Room (in Rush Rhees Library)
University of Rochester
(free and open to the public)
Sponsored by the Friends of the University of Rochester Libraries

Open Letter editor E.J. Van Lanen will discuss the difficulties, joys, and controversies of re-translating Ilf and Petrov’s The Golden Calf, a revered Russian comedic classic, with the novel’s translators, and Rush Rhees Librarians, Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson

Teaming up with two petty criminals and a hopelessly naïve driver, Ostap Bender leads his merry band of mischief makers on a raucously hilarious jaunt across the “wild west” of the early Soviet Union in pursuit of a secret fortune. One of the true classics of Russian literature, this new translation of Ilf and Petrov’s The Golden Calf—the first complete translation of the novel—restores the absurd, manic energy of the original and reaffirms the judgment of the Soviet censors, who said: “You have a very nice hero, Ostap Bender. But really, he’s just a son of a bitch.”

(This event is hosted by Open Letter and University of Rochester Arts & Sciences. It is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts.)