Nel mondo fantastico di Vladislav Otrošenko

The fantastic world of Vladislav Otroshenko. Although the literary production of Vladislav Otroshenko (born in 1959) is not vast, his books have gained vast popularity not only among Russian readers, but also among critics and fellow-writers. On close reading his writings reveal his original approach to so-called reality. Otroshenko manages to unearth details and facts from history which, mixed with characters and events of his own invention in his tales, novels and semi-fictional essays, take on a fantastic, incredible look. He has even managed to deceive critics and scholars. He openly declares his debt to the art of Gogol and has thoroughly investigated his biography, finding in it nuggets of the fantastic on which he has based the enjoyable series of semi-fictional essays “Gogoliana”. In this essay I am investigating relevant features of his fictional worlds and the ways he manages to create them.