The Voice Over

The fullest of admiration for the creators of this book, working with the author herself on building a definitive English-language sampler of her work, in the light of her first novel imminently getting translated too. I have long known these publishers for providing quality works for the academic reader, and this is both way out of their remit and par for the course for them. I say it's par for the course for they always seem to have intelligent translators, considered essays and introductions, all provided by the right people for the job. I say beyond their remit for this author is very much alive-alive-o, being born in the same year as me, and generally (beyond some contemporary theatrical pieces I remember) they deal with bringing us the works of Russians who are quite firmly dead. Still, bringing Stepanova herself on board to vet translations and to help compile the piece marks this with all the prestige you would want.

… If that is, you like the idea of reading contemporary literary Russian poetry, and have that either as a peculiar hobby or as a job. In marking this book from the only point of view I can offer – a Mr Average, dipping his toe into the more high-falutin' to try and be erudite for once – this book fails. Yes, the author herself may well be a genius, or a rarity in Russia, but these works are not very readable. We learn here that one of her early career stages was to reject the old Soviet Author system, where any half-legible, State-pleasing work meant a fixed, stipendiary career as an author, which was an idea soon to disappear in the immediate return to capitalism at the fall of the Soviet Union. The introduction tells us she's a marvel at looking back as well as looking around herself and forward, which is why her works concern building and understanding family histories, and react to the Putin years (with its recapture of the Crimea and the criminal invasion of parts of Ukraine), and suchlike. This is all well and good but this is not fodder for the general reader – far from it.

Scholars, if they've got through my verbiage this far, will need to click 'purchase'. Nobody else should ever dare.

The Voice Over is reflective, engaging, and culturally insightful prose and poetry. There is much to appreciate in the literary voice of Maria Stepanova, and this collection is both a demonstration and tribute to this talented voice.

This is a great poetry and essay collections that deals with topic such as abuse, ptsd, the circle of abuse, loneliness, the complexities of daily life, among others. It includes such a sincere and personal, hurt, representation of ptsd; how trauma affects not only the individual, but those who surround them. The author has a great literary voice that bleeds through translation, she's great at creating an image in your head without explaining every detail, like photographs of a fading memory, small pieces that are able to convey so much. A powerful piece of work, that is also very sad.
I'd also like to highlight the work of the translators, and how useful all their notes are to contextualize the author's writing, they are a little bit long, but very accessible and clear.

{DNF}
What can I say? I didn't like this one. It was hard to read and confusing and not at all what I thought it would be! Part of that is on me, but part of that is on the writing.

So much potential wasted with this book.

Maria Stepanova's ouvre is reflective, exciting and dynamic. But this collection's formatting and structure distracts from, rather than enhances the beauty of her words. As it stands, this book is hard to read because of the confused formatting, and the curatorial elements do little to properly contextualize the poems for the English language reader.