Four of the seminal figures of Russian literature in the second half of the 20th century — Vladimir Nabokov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky and Vassily Aksyonov — became citizens or long-term residents of the United States. Bully for us, Americans might say, flattered that their country was the venue of choice when these world-renowned writers became unwanted by their homeland. Yet little beyond the simple fact of residence actually unites this seeming "Russian-American" quartet, whose very different members worked in very different genres and styles — and harbored very different feelings about their New World host.
Mark H. Teeter teaches English and Russian-American relations in Moscow.
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