Reading in order to see. Arina Obukh

Abstract

The critic and essay writer E. Shcheglova paints a critical portrait of A. Obukh, conducting a thorough analysis of the Petersburgian writer’s creative manner, describing the themes of her short stories and their genre-specific and stylistic features, and initiating a discussion that not only concerns Obukh’s prose, but also applies to ‘new twenty-year-olds’ in general. Shcheglova is attentive and benevolent as a critic. She explores both the light, airy substance of Obukh’s prose and her drawings, which the writer uses to illustrate her slightly absurdist short stories that maintain an amazingly harmonious presence in the two worlds, the literary and artistic one, and places Obukh in the context of the typical Petersburgian style with its somber graphics and attention to architectural elements. According to Shcheglova, Obukh’s creative approach as a writer and an artist is constituted by a pronounced artistic and romantic view of life and its poetisation.