A hundred years of ostranenie

readings of, in and with Viktor Šklovskij's founding word of modern literary theory

edited byHolt MeyerAlexandra Berlina

This is a book on ostranenie, a key term for literary and aesthetic studies invented by Viktor Borisovič Šklovskij (1893-1984) a little over 100 years ago. In a sense, it is these 100 years which are the topic of this book. One thing that has definitely happened in those 100 plus years is that, while many brilliant scholars have come to terms with the term as a whole or in key aspects, no one in any language has come up with a perfect translation of the word. Paraphrasing Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as the title of this book does: the word has lived for a over hundred years in Russian solitude, and will no doubt continue to do so.