Andrei Platonov
Andrei Platonov’s biting “The Anti-Sexus” in my translation was published in Cabinet Magazine Issue 51 (Fall 2013). Platonov wrote the story in 1926 but it wasn’t published until 1981. I enjoyed translating the “testimonials” to the device from the likes of Ghandi, Mussolini, Douglas Fairbanks, and — a special in-joke — Viktor Shklovsky.
Our company has transformed sexual feeling from a crude elemental urge to an ennobling mechanism, we have given the world moral behavior. We have removed the element of sex from human relationships and cleared the way for pure spiritual friendship… As a goodwill gesture to our new client, the Soviet lands’ unique inhabitant, we have allowed special discounts for our instruments, such as giving union members who buy collectively up to 20% off the current list price…