The Witching Hour and Other Plays by Nina Sadur - Paperback

by Nina Sadur (Author), Nadya L. Peterson (Editor)

With the exception of Liudmila Petrushevskaia's dramatic output, Soviet/Russian drama of the 1980s and 1990s has generally been ignored by the Western literary establishment. Nina Sadur, the playwright, occupies a prominent place in the literary pantheon of the period. The plays included in this volume off er some of her most infl uential theatrical works to the English-speaking audience for the fi rst time. This collection will appeal to readers interested in Russian literature and culture, Russian theater, and women's literature in general. Sadur's plays are inspired by symbolist drama, the theater of the absurd, and Russian folklore, yet are also infused with contemporary reality and populated by contemporary characters. They are overtly gynocentric, and have exerted a tremendous influence on contemporary Russian literature. Working essentially in isolation, Sadur built a bridge between the early twentieth century dramatic discourse and that of the late Soviet era, preparing for the rise of the new Russian drama of the 2000s.

Author Biography

Born in Riga, Latvia, Nadya L. Peterson was educated in Moscow, Russia and received her Ph.D. in Russian literature from Indiana University. She is currently an Associate Professor of Russian at Hunter College of the City University of New York and the Head of the Russian and Slavic Studies Program at Hunter. Peterson is also on the faculty of the doctoral program in the Department of Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is a specialist on contemporary Russian prose and women's literature. Peterson is the author of Subversive Imaginations: Fantastic Prose and the End of Soviet Literature, 1970s-1990s and of a number of articles on various aspects of Russian literature, culture and education. She is a published translator and editor, most recently of Russian Love Stories (Peter Lang, 2009).