Made Under Pressure

"This is the most comprehensive description of how Soviet literary publishing works since the 1960s, making a very significant contribution to book history, Soviet history, and translation studies. In addition, the oral history aspect is quite amazing."—Greg Barnhisel, author of Cold War Modernists: Art, Literature, and American Cultural Diplomacy

"Made Under Pressure provides invaluable first-person 'insider' accounts of literary translation in the postwar Soviet Union by translators and editors in Moscow and Leningrad while also incorporating much of the excellent Russian research on the topic."—Brian James Baer, author of Other Russias: Homosexuality and the Crisis of Post-Soviet Identity

"Natalia Kamovnikova's story draws our attention further to the ways that reading is mediated in 'closed societies' and the everyday methods deployed to encourage creative freedom."—Reception

"[Kamovnikova] offers a colorful and engaging portrait of how cross-cultural reception is shaped institutionally before there is yet anything to receive."—Russian Review

"This book is an original and valuable contribution to the history of Soviet literary translation, adopting as it does a refreshingly new perspective . . . Kamovnikova's engaging, far-reaching, and unique study of the role of literary translators and translations in the Soviet Union will be both informative and pleasurable not only for Slavic scholars but for any reader interested in literary translations 'made under pressure.'"—Translation and Literature