The Washington Post has an amazing article about teaching Russian literature in prisons in Virginia. Not only does it recount how convicted felons are getting enthusiastic about reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and company, and having their minds opened up to the wider possibilities of life by what they’re reading as opposed to being reformed or restrained […]
“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 […]
The 2013 London Book Fair will take place from April 15 to 17 with Turkey as this year’s guest of honor. There will be a number of writers and events that touch on Central and Eastern European literature, including: GLAS New Russian Writing will be presenting Debut Prize winners Irina Bogatyreva, Alexander Snegirev and Olga […]
The 4th Slovo Russian Literature Festival is well underway in London. Running from March 5 to 26 the festival celebrates Russian literature old and new, along with the links between the two. This is well illustrated by lectures being given on March 15 by contemporary novelist Dmitry Bykov (Living Souls, 2011) on Boris Pasternak and […]
The literary history of Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odessa is the focus of British novelist and journalist A.D. Miller’s article on the Odessa State Literary Museum “The Odessaphiles” at The Economist’s Intelligent Life. It’s a nice introduction to the city’s mythical place in Russian history, literary and otherwise, especially in regard to Isaak […]
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 […]
At The Moscow Times, John Freedman writes about discovering that the unassuming Moscow apartment building he passed countless times had belonged to Russian/Soviet/Yiddish theater legend Solomon Mikhoels. As Freedman notes, Mikhoels performance of King Lear was his most famous and celebrated role along with that of Tevye the Milkman (best-known worldwide in adaptation in Fiddler […]
At Russia Beyond the Headlines Alexander Genis asks whether Russia could have a Norton-like anthology of its literature, in spite of all the debate that surrounds these anthologies and the canons they imply. Russia though, especially in the 20th century, presents some unique challenges: “Perhaps, the solution is to end the list at 1917. As […]
Oxford University is the site of a conference on the last two decades of Russian literature titled Decadence or Renaissance? Russian literature since 1991 that starts today. Besides all the academic speakers discussing issues as diverse as the latest wave of Russian and Russian-Jewish emigration, political novels, counter-culture and oil, there are two guest authors […]
There is something as poetic as it is sad that one of the great Russian-Jewish writers of the latter half of the 20th century worked as a pathologist (worked, that is, until the powers that be demoted and eventually fired him). The New Yorker has a very short story by the magnificent author of Summer […]
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