The Kukotsky Enigma Explained

The Kukotsky Enigma (The Kukotsky Case)
Title Orig:Казус Кукоцкого
Translator:Diane Nemec Ignashev
Author:Lyudmila Ulitskaya
Country:United States
Language:English
Genre:Novel
Publisher:Northwestern University Press (English)
Published:2001
English Pub Date:August 2016
Media Type:Print (Paperback)
Pages:392 pp
Isbn:9780810133488

The Kukotsky Enigma (Russian: Казус Кукоцкого) is a novel by acclaimed[1] Russian novelist and public intellectual Lyudmila Ulitskaya. The Kukotsky Enigma won the 2001 Russian Booker Prize.[2] With five, Ulitskaya holds the record for the most nominations for that prestigious award. In 2005, a television series based on the novel by director Yuri Grymov was aired in Russia. Critics suggest that the book's focus on abortion (from 1936 to 1955 it was allowed in the USSR only for medical reasons) offers a new reading of Stalinism through the lens of family life and the female body.[3]

Plot summary

The novel follows the life of the family of gynecologist Pavel Alekseevich Kukotsky. The story follows him from Stalin’s 1936 ban on abortions through the mid-1960s.

The novel consists of four parts. The first describes the life of the Kukotsky family members before the 1960s: his wife Yelena, their adopted daughter Tanya, a classmate Toma, and a former nun working as a housekeeper in Yelena’s home. The second part is a dream Yelena experiences while hovering between life and death. The third part covers the family's life after 1960 and up to Tanya's death. The fourth part forms a brief epilogue.

Editions

Notes and References

  1. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/weight-words
  2. Web site: Archive – 2001. Russian Booker Prize. Russian. 18 November 2015.
  3. Sutcliffe . Benjamin . 2009 . Mother, Daughter, History: Embodying The Past In Liudmila Ulitskaia's Sonechka And The Case Of Kukotsky . 40651214 . The Slavic and East European Journal . 53 . 4 . 606–622 .