O'kei: an American Novel

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O'kei: an American Novel University of New Hampshire University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository Faculty Publications 2020 O'kei: An American Novel Boris Pilnyak Ronald D. LeBlanc (Translator) University of New Hampshire, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs Recommended Citation Pilnyak, Boris and LeBlanc (Translator), Ronald D., "O'kei: An American Novel" (2020). Faculty Publications. 926. https://scholars.unh.edu/faculty_pubs/926 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Boris Pilnyak O'kei: An American Novel Translated by Ronald D. LeBlanc Table of Contents Acknowledgments . IV Note on Translation & Transliteration . IV “Pilnyak Discovers America: The Making of O’kei: An American Novel”. VI O’kei: An American Novel . 1 Chapter 1. 1 Chapter 2 . 1 Chapter 3 . 3 Chapter 4 . 6 Chapter 5 . 10 Chapter 6 . 14 Chapter 7 . 17 Chapter 8 . 17 Chapter 9 . 18 Chapter 10 . 24 Chapter 11 . 26 Chapter 12 . 29 Chapter 13 . 35 Chapter 14 . 36 Chapter 15. 37 Chapter 16 . 40 Chapter 17 . 49 Chapter 18 . 50 Chapter 19 . 54 Chapter 20 . 56 Chapter 21 . 59 Chapter 22 . 62 Chapter 23 . 65 Chapter 24 . 85 Chapter 25 . 88 Chapter 26 . 94 Chapter 27 . 103 Chapter 28 . 107 Chapter 29 . 117 Chapter 30 . 125 Chapter 31 . 126 Chapter 32 . 136 Chapter 33 . 143 Chapter 34 . 146 Chapter 35 . 149 Chapter 36 . 151 II Chapter 37 . 158 Chapter 38 . 161 Chapter 39 . 169 Chapter 40 . 177 Chapter 41 . 190 Chapter 42 . 191 Chapter 43 . 194 Chapter 44 . 198 III Acknowledgments I wish to thank the several friends and colleagues who provided me with assistance, advice, and support during the course of my work on this translation project. They include, among others, Lynn Visson and Dwight Roesch, two professional interpreters/translators who worked for many years at the United Nations, as well as Dwight’s wife, Liya [Vinnikov] Roesch, whose perspective as a native speaker of Russian proved invaluable. Thanks also go out to Andrei Zorin and Eric Naiman, two fellow Slavicists, who were, as always, extremely gracious in providing feedback on issues involving the political, literary, and cultural history of Russia. I am grateful to Jack Hembrough, a long-time friend (and former college roommate), for his assistance with financial and economic terminology (his Harvard M.B.A. served us both well). I also appreciate very much the feedback that I received from numerous colleagues in Slavic Studies to queries that were posted online to the SEELANGS e-list. Last but not least, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the woman I love, Lynda Galard-LeBlanc, whose patience, forbearance, and tolerance during this project have been truly amazing and are very deeply appreciated. Note on Translation & Transliteration As a scholar of Russian literature, I turned to translation only near the very end of my academic career, at which point in time I had become deeply interested in two putative novels that Boris Pilnyak had written during the 1930s: O’kei: An American Novel (O’kei. Amerikanskii roman) (1933) and Meat: A Novel (Myaso: Roman) (1936). Last year, I completed a translation of.
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