ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how authors’ extratextual actions and statements, which take place apart from their literary work, shape the commissioning, translation, and reception of Russian novels in English. Expanding Şehnaz Tahir-Gürçağlar's concept of the extratext (2002), the chapter considers political actions and public statements as influential factors in how authors are framed and received. Through a comparative analysis of Mikhail Shishkin and Mikhail Elizarov, it explores how a political stance affects literary reputation. Shishkin's open letter refusing to represent Russia at BookExpo America in 2013, and his subsequent opinion pieces in Western media, elevated him to the status of dissident writer, directly affecting his sales and critical reception. In contrast, Elizarov's The Librarian circulated in English without its Russian political context, allowing a novel with nationalist undertones to be marketed as apolitical satire. Drawing on interviews with translators and editors, the chapter argues that both the inclusion and absence of extratextual framing reveal the ethical stakes of translation publishing and the mechanisms by which cultural and political power shape literary circulation.
