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PARTISAN REVIEW
disclaim the system, but understanding is still more desirable. I be–
lieve that our psychological history has been recorded by a person
who has come to a realization of himself and his life, a very intelli–
gent and talented man, even when he served the Soviet regime.
VIKTOR NEKRASSOV: I would like to add three words to what
Korzhavin has said about Grigorenko. There are people in the So–
viet Union to whom Soviets have given everything: fame, wealth,
peace, and happiness . Sakharov, awarded Hero of Socialist Labor
three times, is one of these, and he could have done anything he
wanted. But he chose another path, the most difficult in life. Petr
Grigorenko was a famous general; he fought well and has medals
that would cover his whole chest. Now he is deprived of all his titles;
he's not even a soldier. He's simply no one, because he suddenly be–
came concerned with the fate of the Crimean Tatars, and he gave
them his entire life.
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: Are you familiar with the works of such
American novelists as Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Bernard Mal–
amud, William Styron, John Updike - just to mention a few? Are
you familiar with American poetry?
VLADIMIR VOINOVICH: I don't think the Russian reader is fa–
miliar with such writers as Bellow or Mailer; they're not translated.
He is more familiar with writers of the older generation: Hemingway,
Faulkner, Salinger; and with those a little younger: Updike and, let's
say, Albee. Aksyonov, for example, has translated Doctorow. I be–
lieve this was his last work in the Soviet Union. Old American litera–
ture is especially well known, like Mark Twain.
EFIM ETKIND: I would like to mention two or three authors. One
is not an American but a British poet: Ted Hughes, who has left me
with a deep impression . The other two are Americans: Kurt Vonne–
gut, who is read widely in the Soviet Union and well received by the
Soviet leaders; and Robert Penn Warren, whose novel,
All the King's
Men,
is a very important work, which impressed me and the hun–
dreds of thousands of readers of the review
Novy MiT,
where it was
published about seven or eight years ago.
NAUM KORZHAVIN: The literature of the Southern Renaissance
has had the greatest influence on me, not in some dissident direc–
tion, but simply as literature, as an introduction to a certain world.
First and foremost is Faulkner. Before Faulkner I loved Hemingway,
but for some reason - though it's absolutely unnecessary that one
writer cancel out the other- after Faulkner, Hemingway somehow
