VOYNOVICH, V.N. (1932–2018) Two Volumes from a Trilogy Banned in the USSR 1) Zhizn’ i neobychaynye priklyucheniya soldata Ivana Chonkina: roman-anekdot v pyati chastyakh ['The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin: A Novel-Anecdote in Five Parts']. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1975 2) Pretendent na prestol: novye priklyucheniya soldata Ivana Chonkina ['The Pretender to the Throne: New Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin']. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1979.

287 pp., [1] portrait; 19.5 × 14 cm. Publisher’s illustrated wrappers. Very good condition. Minor soiling to the reverse. 1) Zhizn’ i neobychaynye priklyucheniya soldata Ivana Chonkina: roman-anekdot v pyati chastyakh ['The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin: A Novel-Anecdote in Five Parts']. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1975 The novel circulated in samizdat and was clandestinely reproduced and distributed in the USSR. In the 1960s, Vladimir Voynovich joined the literary and political opposition. The publication in 1975 of the first part of ‘Zhizn’ i neobychaynye priklyucheniya soldata Ivana Chonkina’ in the West effectively ended his career as a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR. 2) Pretendent na prestol: novye priklyucheniya soldata Ivana Chonkina ['The Pretender to the Throne: New Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin']. Paris: YMCA-Press, 1979. — 357, [3] pp.; 19.5 × 14 cm. Publisher’s illustrated wrappers. Very good condition. Minor creasing to the edges. The second volume of the trilogy ‘Litso neprikosnovennoe’. On 21 December 1980, Voynovich was stripped of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the USSR. First editions of the first and second volumes of a novel banned in the USSR.