I Am the World, I'll Eat the World

28 i World Literature Today special section IAm the World, I'll Eat the World A Conversation with Gary Shteyngart Sara Brown & Armando Celayo Gary Shteyngart was bornin1972 inLeningrad,in theSovietUnion.He immigrated tothe United States with his parents when he was seven years old, lost his accent at age fourteen, andgraduated fromOberlinCollegewith a degreeinpoliticalscience. He laterreceived an MF A increative writing from Hunter College and iscurrently an associateprofessor in the creative writingprogramatColumbiaUniversity. InOctober2008 Shteyngart visitedthe Universityof Oklahoma alongwithworld renowned Soviet artist Vitaly Komar. The twowere part of a five-day lecture course entitled "RussianEmigreArtists in the Contextof AmericanCulture/'whichwas sponsoredby the Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program.Thefull-length versionofthe following interview can befound on the WLT website (wlt.ou.edu). SARA BROWN & ARMANDO CELAYO We were wondering if there's anything you're working on right now. GARY SHTEYNGART Yeah. It's a very difficultbook. It's difficultbecause it's so timely. I started two years ago, so it's about the collapse of theUnited States. Itbegins with this sortof financial collapse. SB & AC Are thereany recurringcharacters? GS None. I don't think so. I keep changing itbecause I'm so finickyabout it,but it's also a love story, which isprettydifferentfor me. It's reallyabout twopeople fromtwodifferentcultures and theirrelation ship. So, it's a very different book, in a way?it's different and it's not. I usually write about Russia in very differentapocalyptic terms,but now I don't have togo toRussia to feelapocalyptic. SB & AC Is itlike their love story's set on thebackdrop of the collapse? GS Yeah, you know, playing with thiskind of fictionthatIwrite?character for me is the most important, but I'm also very interested inaworld of ideas. Likewise, I'm very interested inday-to-day lifeindifferent countries and cultures and differentpolitics, and how politics affectsthepersonal. The book is also about the death of literature. It's set slightly in the future,and nobody can read and comprehend a sentence. There's actually one scene in the book where one character tries to read The 3 March-April 2009 i29 Unbearable LightnessofBeing toanother, and there'sa generational gap between them,about tenyears, but theother character reading justcannot comprehend one part of it.It's something I'm veryworried about, obviously. Where thingsare trending. SB & AC It seems like you've got a whole lotof idioms inyour language?especially with Absurdistan (2006), you had Misha, who's very influenced by hip-hop culture, and uses hip-hop language.Was that something thatyou consciously wanted Misha tohave so that itreflectedhis view ofAmerica? GS In someways, Absurdistanwas really in the throesofwhat happens toglobalism when the whole deck of cards collapses. At thispoint, certainly in termsof culture, there's a huge permeation ofAmerican cul ture inRussia and other countries. So I think Misha is theZagat Survey,orwhatever?he's the most global man hewants tobe. Other identitieshe carries?whether a nationalist identity,religious identity,or even his identityas his father's son?are so important tohim. The easiest thing is toopt out and tobe the world?We are the world, as thatsong used to say. I am the world, or I'll eat the world. SB & AC In an article you said something about how you identify yourself as a Soviet Jew.Consid ering theJewishdiaspora, do you thinkthathelps you tounderstand thediaspora of other cultures? GS Well, being Jewish isbeing Jewish,of course, and being in a diaspora is being in a diaspora. Well, you know, it's different. I thinkAmerican Jews are?and Iwon't speak forall of them?but I think those that are several generations behind feelcertainlymore American than anything.Now there are organizations, of course, for every ethnic group that trytokeep the spiritgoing because it's in their own interest to perpetuate. But, American Jewishism isn't religious, and it's really,maybe, a euphemism forfeelingout ofplace. SB &AC One aspect ofmigration ingeneral is that it'svery difficult to incorporate yourself fully into one culture and it'salso difficult togo back to the other culture, so you end up straddling theborder, which is likewhat? Misha doesn't end up straddling theborder, he kind of embodies theperfectperson who's absorbed everything,but yourGirshkin character,he's straddling it. Have you found that

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