When I spoke with the Ukrainian writer Serhiy Zhadan this past summer, at a café in the ninth district of Vienna, I found him much gentler than I had imagined him to be. As a public persona, Zhadan is sexy and tough and the lead singer of a ska band called Sobaky v Kosmosi, or Dogs in Outer Space. His music is post-proletarian punk, his poetry is lyrical, and his novels recall William Burroughs and the Beats, with the occasional intrusion of Latin American-style magical realism. Yet in person Zhadan was a self-reflective conversation partner and a careful listener. He …read more
Source: The New Yorker
