The wind of freedom. Ksenia Buksha

Abstract

The article discusses the work of the St. Petersburg-based writer K. Buksha. The author proposes a careful analysis and critical reception of her prose, starting from the very first novel, published under the penname of a seventy-five-year-old Krzysztof Bakush, to her latest book Advent, an experiment with rhythmic prose. In her analysis of the writer’s work, E. Minaeva focuses on the novels The Freedom Factory [Zavod ‘Svoboda’], Opens Out [Otkryvaetsya vnutr ], and Churov and Churbanov [Churov i Churbanov], each of them featuring typical Bukshaesque characters — humble and odd, they suffer their own personal spiritual tragedy. According to the critic, Buksha strives to let the reader see the characters’ world and the changes their lives undergo over time. Along with the attention given to the fate of the characters and the twists and turns of Buksha’s recurrent plots, the article is characterised by a detailed dialogue with critics who have reviewed Buksha’s works (including judges of the National Bestseller Prize, whose shortlists featured Buksha’s novels more than once) and an invitation to form your own opinion based on the proposed critical summary.