"I am a Phenomenon Quite out of the Ordinary": The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms (Cultural Revolutions: Russia in the Twentieth Century)

“I am a Phenomenon Quite out of the Ordinary” offers a fascinating look into the life and mind of poet and prose miniaturist Daniil Kharms (1905- 1942). One of the legendary figures of the “Last Soviet Avant-Garde,” Kharms was the tutelary spirit of “Russia’s lost literature of the absurd.” His work, rescued from oblivion by a dedicated group of friends and scholars, has attained an almost cult-like status among present-day Russia’s literary elite. In this volume, Anthony Anemone and Peter Scotto translate a wide-ranging selection of materials from Kharms’ private notebooks, diaries, letters, and even documents from the KGB archives detailing Kharms’ tragic end in a psychiatric prison hospital—most never before published in English. This is essential reading for anyone interested in Russian literature, Soviet culture, and the inner workings of the mind of a quirky genius.