Oksana Zabuzhko
Author of The Museum of Abandoned Secrets
About the Author
Works by Oksana Zabuzhko
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Забужко, Оксана Стефанівна
Zabuzhko, Oksana Stefanivna - Other names
- Zabužko, Oksana
- Birthdate
- 1960-09-19
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Taras Shevchenko University (philosophy)
Taras Shevchenko University (PhD) (aesthetics) (1987) - Occupations
- teacher of Ukrainian literature
research associate
magazine columnist
writer
writer-in-residence - Organizations
- Hryhori Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
University of Pennsylvania
Harvard University
University of Pittsburgh - Awards and honors
- Global Commitment Foundation Poetry Prize (1997)
Antonovych International Foundation Prize (2008)
Order of Princess Olha (2009) - Nationality
- Ukraine
- Birthplace
- Lutsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
- Places of residence
- Lutsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Kyev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Pennsylvania, USA
Massachusetts, USA
Kyiv, Ukraine - Associated Place (for map)
- Lutsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Members
Reviews
Despite its importance during early years of Ukrainian independence, this book presents a few somewhat unnecessary challenges to a reader. My first complaint is about the language. The Ukrainian language is often appreciated for its structural musicality. A well-written prose could feel like it is on a verge of breaking into a song. Such musicality is missing for this reader in Zabuzhko’s writing. The author obviously has a formidable vocabulary in Ukrainian but her choice of words seems show more often puzzling, as if she insists on the most discordant combination she could find. Persistent use of Russian words, although often in a meaningful context, adds insult to the injury. On top of this there are conversation fillers in English, which are entirely unnecessary. Despite the author’s insistence on throwing in a number of her own poems, the narration stumbles along rather than flows. This might be an intentional reflection of the state of mind of the protagonist, to whose limping stream of consciousness a reader is exposed. The choice of this narrative technique is my second complaint and the protagonist herself and her undeniably soviet-formed mentality is the third.
Having gotten my complaints out of the way I will focus now on the admirable aspects of the novel. The author is very honest and does not avoid difficult subjects or ugly truths. Through her dislikable characters she conveys the lack of options available to a Ukrainian (woman) in soviet and post-soviet times. It’s a choice ‘between a victim and a torturer, between non-being and being that kills’. Zabuzhko’s most memorable phrase, which I do not include here for the risk of spoiling the best part of the reading experience, arrives close to the end of the book. Indeed, she has completed her research. show less
Having gotten my complaints out of the way I will focus now on the admirable aspects of the novel. The author is very honest and does not avoid difficult subjects or ugly truths. Through her dislikable characters she conveys the lack of options available to a Ukrainian (woman) in soviet and post-soviet times. It’s a choice ‘between a victim and a torturer, between non-being and being that kills’. Zabuzhko’s most memorable phrase, which I do not include here for the risk of spoiling the best part of the reading experience, arrives close to the end of the book. Indeed, she has completed her research. show less
Challenge worth completing
It was a slow book to get into, in the beginning I could not understand what is the structure of this book, how these stories come together, she rambles on and you lose what she was talking about initially, the chapters are very long and there are large parts in parentheses. In the audiobook it is hard to understand these transitions and stories within stories. Though, the actress reading the audiobook does an excellent job.
However, almost half-way through, I show more started to love it, somehow all the mosaic pieces start to fall into their places, it becomes easier to understand when she has rambled off and to remember which place we are still at. I have got more familiar with the main actors and have started to like them. The dream format almost makes it like a mystery/thriller...
But most of all I love the deep and sharp contemplation not only of the Ukrainian history and its present, but more widely of life, death, love - the big questions.
The highest praise for a book is that you can't stop thinking about it and this is this kind of a book. show less
It was a slow book to get into, in the beginning I could not understand what is the structure of this book, how these stories come together, she rambles on and you lose what she was talking about initially, the chapters are very long and there are large parts in parentheses. In the audiobook it is hard to understand these transitions and stories within stories. Though, the actress reading the audiobook does an excellent job.
However, almost half-way through, I show more started to love it, somehow all the mosaic pieces start to fall into their places, it becomes easier to understand when she has rambled off and to remember which place we are still at. I have got more familiar with the main actors and have started to like them. The dream format almost makes it like a mystery/thriller...
But most of all I love the deep and sharp contemplation not only of the Ukrainian history and its present, but more widely of life, death, love - the big questions.
The highest praise for a book is that you can't stop thinking about it and this is this kind of a book. show less
More Rant Than Research
Review of the Amazon Crossing paperback (June 2011) translated by Halyna Hryn from the Ukrainian language original Польові дослідження з українського сексу (Field Research on Ukrainian Sex) (1996)
Despite the intriguing premise of the book's various synopses and the brilliant erotic simplicity of the English translation's cover design, its rant-link stream-of-consciousness one-long-paragraph one-long-chapter format made for a tiring and draining reading experience. There was little relief along the way except for the occasional poem inserted into the proceedings.
The protagonist bemoans her distant Ukrainian lover while in the process of delivering a faux-lecture on the title topic to a seminar crowd in Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Towards the end of the book, having arranged for the absent artist/painter to come to America to join her, she finds him soon abandoning her to seek better prospects. It fizzles out from there.
The post-Soviet (post-Russian?) moral was summed up in a late paragraph:
Trivia and Links
With the recent Russia-Ukraine War, I decided to increase my reading of Ukrainian authors. After Andrey Kurkov's Death and the Penguin (1996) I looked again at GR's listopia of Ukrainian Literature and most of the top of the list didn't seem to be clearly available in translation. Searching further I found an additional listopia of Best Ukrainian Books Translated into English, where Oksana Zabuzhko's Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex is the top voted selection, so I chose it on that basis. I'll probably read either Kurkov's Penguin Lost (orig. 1996) or Zabuzhko's The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (orig. 2009) next in my Ukrainian writers survey. It is tempting to include some Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov as well, even if they are considered Russian authors, as they were both born in Ukraine.
Library Thing also has a useful Ukraine Reading List which includes fiction and non-fiction related to Ukraine by non-Ukrainian authors. show less
Review of the Amazon Crossing paperback (June 2011) translated by Halyna Hryn from the Ukrainian language original Польові дослідження з українського сексу (Field Research on Ukrainian Sex) (1996)
The sexual odyssey of the artist and poetess, unfolding in Ukraine and America in the late twentieth century, turns into a true medieval mystery, in which the heroine goes through the circles of recent Ukrainian history to meet face to faceshow more
with the Devil. - a translation of the Ukrainian language edition synopsis.[2.5]
Despite the intriguing premise of the book's various synopses and the brilliant erotic simplicity of the English translation's cover design, its rant-link stream-of-consciousness one-long-paragraph one-long-chapter format made for a tiring and draining reading experience. There was little relief along the way except for the occasional poem inserted into the proceedings.
The protagonist bemoans her distant Ukrainian lover while in the process of delivering a faux-lecture on the title topic to a seminar crowd in Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Towards the end of the book, having arranged for the absent artist/painter to come to America to join her, she finds him soon abandoning her to seek better prospects. It fizzles out from there.
The post-Soviet (post-Russian?) moral was summed up in a late paragraph:
..we were raised by men f***ed from all ends every which way? That later we ourselves screwed the same kind of guys, and that in both cases they were doing to us what others, the others, had done to them? And that we accepted them and loved them as they were, because not to accept them was to go over to the others, the other side? And that our only choice, therefore, was and still remains between victim and executioner: between nonexistence and an existence that kills you.It probably all seemed more profound and provocative in the early years of Ukrainian independence in the 1990s (the book was published in 1996). I admittedly am biased due t0 my own observations of the Homo-Sovieticus in post-Renewed Independence Estonian society.
Trivia and Links
With the recent Russia-Ukraine War, I decided to increase my reading of Ukrainian authors. After Andrey Kurkov's Death and the Penguin (1996) I looked again at GR's listopia of Ukrainian Literature and most of the top of the list didn't seem to be clearly available in translation. Searching further I found an additional listopia of Best Ukrainian Books Translated into English, where Oksana Zabuzhko's Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex is the top voted selection, so I chose it on that basis. I'll probably read either Kurkov's Penguin Lost (orig. 1996) or Zabuzhko's The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (orig. 2009) next in my Ukrainian writers survey. It is tempting to include some Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov as well, even if they are considered Russian authors, as they were both born in Ukraine.
Library Thing also has a useful Ukraine Reading List which includes fiction and non-fiction related to Ukraine by non-Ukrainian authors. show less
A brilliant Eastern European poet learns the hard way that it can be hell to be a relationship with a painter. Not a conventional novel, more a prose-poem "rant" with aspirations to be the Ukrainian "Second Sex." Zabushko riffs on Ukrainian history, men and women, and the neglible place of poetry in today's society. Just be aware: if you can't handle stream-of-consciousness style, you're not going to be able to follow "Ukrainian Sex." Kudos to AmazonCrossing for publishing a bold book in show more translation. show less
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 24
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 467
- Popularity
- #52,671
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 10
- ISBNs
- 54
- Languages
- 6
- Favorited
- 1
