Chimeric Prose

Chimeric prose (khymerna proza) is a stylistic current in Ukrainian literature from the late 1950s to the 1980s (flourishing in the 1970s and 1980s) that combined the realistic depiction of reality with folkloric-mythological fantasy, parable, grotesque, conventionality, ironic play, and free composition, becoming the Ukrainian counterpart of world Magic Realism. The name is connected with the subtitle of Oleksandr Ilchenko's novel The Cossack Line Has No End, or Mamai and the Strange Young Woman — 'a chimeric novel'. To the current belong the works of Valerii Shevchuk (The House on the Hill, Three Leaves Beyond the Window), Volodymyr Drozd, Vasyl Zemliak's novel A Flock of Swans, and the prose of Yevhen Hutsalo. Chimeric prose drew on the Baroque tradition, folk demonology, and Cossack legends, allowing writers under censorship to speak of national history, memory, and spirituality in the language of myth and parable. It became an important bridge to postmodern prose.