The Art of Writing Badly: Valentin Kataev’s Mauvism and the Rebirth of Russian Modernism

The art of writing badly is a phrase the Russian writer Valentin Kataev coined to describe the work that came out of the mauvist movement in Russian literature - a style of writing that consciously challenged Soviet dogma. This disobedient writing is typically characterized by an exaggerated focus on the self and by a contradiction of the collective idea. In this book, Richard Borden discusses the cultural and political context from which these authors emerged and the development of bad writing. Examining the works of well-reknown post-Stalinist writers such as Kataev, Evgeny Popov and Adrei Bitov, this text brings to light facets of their writing that have never been discussed, thus enriching the readings of the particular texts under discussion.