At the outset I have to admit that I really don’t understand this. The Read Russia Prize, at least on their website, is stated to be for “English translations of Russian literature” and to be given in New York each May. So naturally last weekend in Moscow they announced the winners of the prize, the […]
A lot of early 20th century Moscow, Paris (through Russian eyes) and Berlin this week, though also some interstellar travel, 21st century Berlin and more. Black Snow by Mikhail Bulgakov After being saved from a suicide attempt by the appearance of a literary editor, the journalist and failed novelist Sergei Maxudov has a book suddenly […]
Writing in the Malay Insider, Erna Mahyuni compares government interference in Russia and Malaysia through the prism of her favorite author Mikhail Bulgakov. Where Putin’s Russia has a new anti-protest law, Malaysia has a peaceful assembly law. And where writers in Stalin’s Soviet Union were pushed towards acceptable themes and subjects to write about, the […]
“The mist that came from the Mediterranean sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the grim fortress of Antonia vanished, the murk descended from the sky and drowned the winged gods above the hippodrome, the crenellated Hasmonaean palace, the bazaars, the caravanserai, the alleyways, the pools […]
In celebration of its 40th anniversary Index on Censorship is opening up its entire archives for 40 days from March 26 to, if I did the math correctly (no sure thing) means until May 5. After that all issues published before 2010 will remain available through the end of this year. Based on a quick […]
“As in the Soviet past, bright new futures were elusive. Which didn’t mean they wouldn’t come, only that some cost was involved. And in these infant days of Slav capitalism, anything good – bright future included – was extremely pricey. Free, gratis and for nothing was a concept of the past.” – from The Case […]
Tim Parks has an interesting and provocative blog post at NYRB on whether or not it’s necessary to finish good books. It’s obvious, of course, that he is going to suggest that leaving books unfinished is okay, otherwise he would never have written the piece in the first place (“And to conclude, I declare it […]
Yesterday I posted about an article defining the influence of Tolstoy’s novella The Death of Ivan Ilych on the psychological and medical approach to death. It turns out that the usefulness of Russian literature goes beyond the medical profession, as Thomas de Waal points out in an excellent article in Foreign Policy. With a tip […]
Having come to his full powers as a writer whose novels and stories could not be published during Stalin’s growing stranglehold on power, whose plays could almost never hope to be performed, Bulgakov is now a hot commodity in the entertainment world. The latest news is that Stone Village Pictures – makers of The Human […]
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