Nina Nikolayevna Sadur (Russian: Нина Николаевна Садур, (born Nina Nikolayevna Kolesnikova; 15 October 1950 – 12 November 2023), also known as Nína Mikháilovna Sadúr,[1] was a Russian prose writer and playwright. She was known for being "one of the leading proponents of the 'new drama' of the 1980s, whose avant-garde vision is dark, mystic, and absurdist."[1]
Nina Nikolayevna Sadur | |
|---|---|
| Born | Nina Nikolayevna Kolesnikova 15 October 1950 Novosibirsk, Russian SFSR, USSR |
| Died | 12 November 2023 (aged 73) Moscow, Russia |
| Occupation | Prose writer and playwright |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Literary movement | Magic realism Postmodernism Theatre of the Absurd |
| Children | Yekaterina Sadur |
Early life and education
editNina Nikolayevna Sadur was born on 15 October 1950, in Novosibirsk, Russia.[1] She grew up in an intellectual family in a working-class neighborhood of Novosibirsk and experienced a "sense of alienation and fascination for the common folk, the 'other'."[1] Her mother taught Russian literature and was an actress in amateur plays while her father was a poet.[1] Sadur began writing poetry and prose at a young age.[1] As a child, Sadur had an interest in literature and nature.[1] She wanted to become an entomologist but decided to pursue literature instead when she decided that dissecting insects went against her love of the natural world.[1]
Sadur attended the Sixth All-Union Conference for Young Dramatists at the House of Writers in Dubolty, Latvia and studied at the Faculty of Library Science of the Moscow Institute of Culture.[1] She studied under Russian dramatist Viktor Rozov and critic Inna Vishnevskaia at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow,[2] graduating in 1983.[1]
Literary career
editSadur wrote short stories and plays while working as a cleaner at the Pushkin Theatre[2] to support herself.[1] In 1982, she wrote The Wondrous Wrench, which was performed at the Lenkom and Ermolova as well as by the Moscow University student theatre.[2] The play told the story of a game of tag played in a potato field which "may spell the end of the world" and was recognized as a "turning point in modern Russian drama."[2] In 1982, she also wrote The Incriminated Swallow.[2] The following year, she wrote Go On!, The Power of the Voice and Dawn Will Come Up.[2] Some of her other works have included They Froze (1987), The Devil in Love, By Magic, Pannochka, A Nose, Brother Chichikov, and Red Paradise (1988).[2] Red Paradise was a "brutally absurdist" play in which "Soviet tourists to a Crimean fortress, attempting to plunder the treasures of ancient civilizations, meet repeated violent ends."[1] In 1977, she published a semi-autobiographical longer prose work called This Is My Window.[1] In 1989, Sadur joined the Writer's Union.[1][3]
Sadur described her style as being the "realm of the illusory" or "magical realism."[2] Her influences include Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Ray Bradbury, and Clifford Simak.[1]
In 1994, Melissa T. Smith described Sadur's work: "Her prose works, in which narrative perspective is subject to abrupt shifts between internal and external, first and third persons, present a dark vision of contemporary reality. The everyday world, byt, is not the ground of existence, but a thin veil behind which the reader quickly discovers a lurking 'other' – the struggle of good and evil, black magic and Orthodox Christianity."[1]
In 1999, Christine D. Tomei described a hallmark of Sadur's work as being "a strong interest in the everyday details of Soviet life."[4]
In 2014, Sadur published The Witching Hour and Other Plays.[5] Middlebury professor Thomas R. Beyer characterized the work as "[leading] us into the darkness of the human spirit as the Russian literature of Gogol and Dostoevsky has so often done."[5] The Times Literary Supplement wrote about the book, "Sadur's plays are discomforting; they uproot certainties, allowing deep and ugly forces to disrupt the strained surface of Soviet life."[5]
Personal life and death
editSadur had a daughter, Yekaterina Sadur,[6] who is also known as Katia.[1] Yekaterina has published books as well as written for film and theatre.[6]
According to a source published in 1994, Sadur was living in a communal apartment in Moscow with her mother and daughter.[1]
Nina Sadur died in Moscow on 12 November 2023, at the age of 73.[7]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Bessonov, B. L. (1994). Dictionary of Russian Women Writers. ISBN 9780313262654.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Senelick, Laurence (2015) [2007]. Historical Dictionary of Russian Theatre (2nd ed.). Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-4926-4.
- ^ "FT Lecture Notes 4-30-08". www.swarthmore.edu. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
- ^ Tomei, Christine D. Russian Women Writers, Volume I.
- ^ a b c Noble, Barnes &. "The Witching Hour and Other Plays by Nina Sadur". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
- ^ a b "Yekaterina Sadur | CEC ArtsLink". www.cecartslink.org. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
- ^ Умерла писательница Нина Садур (in Russian)