Alexander Ikonnikov, whose books do not print in Russia, is successfully published in Europe in seven languages.
Russians in Germany
In Germany, Alexander Ikonnikov published two books - a collection of short stories "Taiga Blues" (2001) and the novel "Lizka and her men" (2003) - in German. They were reprinted in six other European countries, in different languages except Russian. The circulation of these books is quite high - more than 300 thousand copies of the first, 200 thousand second. It turns out that in Europe it is easier for a Russian writer to publish than in Russia. Our publisher wants money from the author, and the western one is looking for authors, prints and pays a fee. Books in Europe are now valued more than ours.
Study and creativity
The biography of Alexander Ikonnikov begins in 1974 in Urzhum near Kirov on the Vyatka River. Sasha Ikonnikov began writing notes in German in the “peda” back in the mid-90s - as supporting material for the photographs of German photographer Anette Frick, which he accompanied as a translator on her trip to the Kirov region. The result of their creative tandem was the Vyatka Walk photo album, published in Frankfurt (Ausflug auf der Vjatka, Frankfurt, Rosenfeld, 1998), which included nine short novels by a novice writer.
In addition, Ikonnikov had other creative projects while studying on the infack. So, he was engaged in staging performances. The theater of the absurdity led by Ikonnikov staged The Bald Singer by Eugene Ionesco, The Face by Siegfried Lenz, the storyline of Ivan Bezdomny from The Master and Margarita. He wanted to continue his cinematography studies, considered such options as the Munich School of Cinematography and VGIK, but having decided that he could not afford the financial issue, he stayed on a pen and a piece of paper - this was “the easiest, cheapest.”
After graduating from high school in 1998, Ikonnikov had to undergo military service, which attracted him little - this was during the war in the Chechen Republic - so he chose the civilian option. At the interview, the officer told him: "You are lucky, in the village of Bystritsa you are looking for an English teacher." Ikonnikov objected that this did not correspond to his education, that he studied German, and that he knew English poorly. To which he received the answer: "So what? What does it change?" Thus, he spent two years teaching English in Bystrica, watching how snow falls on a provincial landscape, where nothing happens, and where the only goal of the locals is to find how to pay for the next bottle of vodka.
Some time later, Ikonnikov, still teaching English at a rural school, received a call from a well-known German historian and publicist Gerd Könen, who was delighted with his notes in "Walks in the Vyatka" and advised him to continue writing - to write with a specific purpose to be published in a Berlin publishing house Alexander Fest, looking for new authors. Inspired by this recognition, Ikonnikov set to work on the manuscript. He believes that the reason for Fest’s decision to publish it was his ridiculous story, The Chronicle of the Seven Years War. Fest replaced the author’s title of the collection “Reports from the Thaw” with a more vivid and commercially reasonable for Europe “Taiga Blues”. This name evoked many associations among the Germans: it was also felled in the Gulag, and Russian bears, and traditional vodka, as well as accordion songs. Social scenes of this kind are valued in the West: European inhabitants are very interested in "mysterious, gloomy and belligerent Russia."
At the end of the rural period of his life, which gave him rich material for creativity, Ikonnikov moved to Kirov. There he works as a journalist, but soon leaves this activity in order to devote himself entirely to writing.
Another book by Ikonnikov, a couple of years after the first one was published in Germany, is the novel "Lizka and her men." The plot of the book is the story of a girl whose first sexual experience makes the locals gossip about her, and therefore she leaves her town and moves to a big city, where they transfer one relationship to another. This is a tragicomic picture of the life of Russian provincials, their habits, opinions and desires. “A Western woman consciously pursues her own career, and ours relies on a man, ” the author assures. “I was interested in a study of the Russian female character. It turned out a kaleidoscope of Russian life - from perestroika to the present.” This novel enjoyed particular success in sentimental France: in the town of Lomme, "Lizka" was recognized as "a 2005 book."
