Review of О.Г. Сидорова современная литература Великобритании и контакты культур

I must confess that I have already written quite a few book reviews, both formal and deliberately funny, so the entire procedure of producing a short feedback should not be challenging at all, right? You can’t be more wrong, dear readers of Footpath . The book I am going to tell you about is very special to me: first of all, it is written by my revered colleague and a former academic advisor; secondly, some of the articles I found here had knocked me down with some serious pangs of nostalgia.

The book written by Professor Olga Sidorova, Head of the Department of Germanic Philology of Ural Federal University (Ekaterinburg) and, by the way, a regular contributor to Footpath , is devoted to contemporary British literature, and contains various articles related mainly to well-known British authors of the 20^th – 21^st centuries, though there are some references to the writers of the earlier period as well. You will also encounter here some truly interesting pieces dedicated to the problems of translation and intercultural communication (especially in terms of literary texts). Are you totally sure that you know everything about contemporary Scottish literature? Check yourself in the article number five. Do you think that A. Pushkin spoke English fluently? Well, the book can help you find out.

In the foreword Professor Sidorova admits that these articles were written during the last 25 years and were carefully selected and then merged together to form a unified integral text. Indeed, the book seems to be holistic and consistent, and some issues discussed by the author in, say, 2001, are still obviously relevant and topical. The readers of Footpath , the participants of the Perm Seminar and those of us who merely enjoy reading in general and reading contemporary British fiction in particular will definitely appreciate the author’s interpre-

tation of the novels by David Lodge, Nick Hornby, Beryl Bainbridge and many others, and will not dare skip the chapter depicting the image of Russia created by some prominent English authors like Helen Dunmore and Penelope Lively. And the list goes on.

Academic issues aside, I should probably make a confession myself. For me this book embodies everything I like about my department: we do try to analyze books with love and care (at least that is what Olga Sidorova has always taught us), and…some articles bring back memories: for instance, I immediately remembered the day she casually mentioned Kazuo Ishiguro to me, gave me one of his books to read and write a research paper about (of course, it was love at first page); it was she who introduced the world of contemporary British literature to me and my fellow students for the first time. So for me, reading this book has somehow turned into a very emotional experience. Regardless, I am certain that every reader will find here something they can relate to. If you haven’t already, now is the time to search for this book in the libraries or online stores.