Vladimir Sorokin

Vladimir Sorokin is a Russian novelist, playwright, and artist whose experimental fiction and drama satirize Soviet and post-Soviet society.

Russian literature: Literature written in Russian or produced within the cultural traditions of Russia. Sorokin rewrites and subverts conventions inherited from this broad literary tradition.
The Queue: Vladimir Sorokin’s 1985 novel, composed almost entirely of dialogue among people waiting in line. Its voices evoke late-Soviet life without relying on a conventional narrator.
Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Russian Soviet poet and playwright known for revolutionary verse and experimental theatrical works. Sorokin’s later fiction reuses Mayakovsky as a figure within its speculative literary history.
Russian Bookers Prize: A literary prize awarded in Russia from 1992 to 2017 for the best Russian-language novel. Sorokin’s fiction entered the literary establishment even as it challenged conventional taste.
Soviet Union: A socialist state that existed from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. Soviet language, institutions, and ideology furnish targets and materials for Sorokin’s satire.
The Norm: Vladimir Sorokin’s novel, structured as a sequence of formally distinct sections about an unnamed social norm. Its grotesque opening and stylistic pastiches show how he makes conformity physically disturbing.
Andrei Monastyrsky: A Russian conceptual artist and poet associated with the Collective Actions group. Sorokin’s early art career developed in the Moscow conceptualist milieu Monastyrsky helped shape.
National Bolshevik Party: A Russian political organization founded by Eduard Limonov and banned in 2007. Activists associated with the party staged a protest against Sorokin’s novel Blue Lard.
Postmodern literature: Literature that questions stable meaning and often uses parody, fragmentation, and self-conscious form. Sorokin’s pastiche and abrupt shifts of style are central to his experimental method.
Blue Lard: Vladimir Sorokin’s 1999 novel about a substance produced by cloned writers and sought by political powers. Its speculative plot turns literary cloning into a provocation about power and cultural inheritance.

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Mikhail ShishkinRelated: Sorokin offers a contrasting contemporary example of formally inventive Russian prose.