Limonov's "It's Me, Eddie" and the Autobiographical Mode

Abstract

The publication of Eduard Limonov's

It's Me, Eddie ("Eto ia- Edichka) in 1980 aroused impassioned polemics that have not been entirely quelled after more than a decade. Critical discourse on the book tends to superlatives and hyperbole; it has been lauded as "the quintessential novel of the third wave emigration" and reviled as pornographic slander. Limonov's heavy use of mat, his inclusion of numerous explicitly erotic scenes and his avowal of leftist political tendencies all contributed to establishing It's Me, Eddie's infamy.