Description:
Abstract The present article analyzes visual and literary surrealism as a theme and method in Olga Grushin’s debut novel The Dream Life of Sukhanov, paying particular attention to ambiguity and estrangement, unreliable narration and ekphrasis shading into hallucination. It discusses the functions of Shklovsky’s ostranenie and Todorov’s fantastique in the surreal, and analyzes the novel’s use of the three gateways to surrealism: dreams, drugs, and madness.