“Abl-Eddin bowed and said: ‘You can execute me but you should grant me a fair trial. You can impale me, but let us first ask the people if they really grumble, if they are really discontented. You have the means to do so. I myself gave you these means. You can turn them against me […]
Haaretz has a fascinating article on the rich but deeply conflicted life of the Hebrew poet and mostly St. Petersburg resident photographer Asher K. Shapiro. Having converted to Christianity on what he thought was his deathbed so he could marry his pregnant Orthodox Russian girlfriend Shapiro spent his life with the social benefits and personal […]
Russian literature, theater and art will be in the spotlight in Berlin at the RusImport festival from November 29 to December 9. Highlights include performances of Pyotr Fomenko’s production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (in Russian with German titles). Fomenko, who passed away at 80 in August was one of the giants of Russian theater. Then, […]
At Russia Beyond the Headlines novelist Zakhar Prilepin has written a broadside against the neglect of contemporary Russian literature, ongoing simplifications of Russia he sees coming from the West, and makes a case for a non-parodic, traditional, conservative form of Russian writing as it existed in the time of Tolstoy and Chekhov. Well, he is […]
Two of the most stunning and surreal adaptations of two of the strangest books to come out of Poland have just been restored and released in high definition on DVD. Wojciech Jerzy Has directed the adaptations of Jan Potocki’s novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa in 1965 and of Bruno Schulz’s Sanatorium Under the Sign […]
Today in Literature informs us that it was this day in 1896 that saw the premiere of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull in St. Petersburg. The opening bombed, in a large part because the audience came expecting a conventional farce rather than the type of wordy drama that Chekhov has become famous for. Although driven backstage […]
A Hungarian production of Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice, Romeo and Juliet in the housing projects and Orestes in the modern age are just some of what is on offer at the 19th International Festival Theatre in Plzeň. For an article on the festival continue reading … Photo from a production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” by Kladno’s […]
In Reading literary nihilists in Tehran I speculated that having an officially-sanctioned, award-winning, condemnatory literary critical book on absurdist, nihilist fiction might find its largest audience among the country’s future nihilists. Seeing some of the surprising titles that are being translated in Iran these days makes it look like these 21st century apostles of nothingness […]
There must be something other than pollen in the air, because literary disputes have been both more frequent and more heated than usual: the novel isn’t dead, one earnest article claims, it just happens to be the focus of a rearguard attack by the defenders of privilege. The ongoing debate over the value or worthlessness […]
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