I’m very excited to be heading to London soon for the London Book Fair and a morning-to-night program of Russian literature events organized by Academia Rossica! Academia Rossica calls this year’s program focus “fantasy and magical realism,” an aptly broad description that fits the diverse writers and critics who will speak and/or read: Dmitry Bykov, Lev Danilkin, Maria Galina, Sergei Lukyanenko, Olga Slavnikova, and Vladimir Sharov.
The schedule also includes seminar discussions on the Russian publishing market and literary translation. Russian programs at the book fair itself are listed here (click on the phrases at the top of the sidebar for full details), and there is a list of evening readings here. I’m especially looking forward to the “Voices from the Future – The Debut Prize for New Russian Writers” session on the 20th: I translated a few short pieces for Squaring the Circle, an anthology published by Glas that collects work by winners of the Debut Prize.
This week I’ll post two pieces related to writers who will be at the book fair: thoughts on Bykov’s ЖД (recently released in translation as Living Souls) plus an interview with Marian Schwartz, who translated Slavnikova’s 2017.
Let me know if you’ll be at the book fair and would like to meet up… or if you have a question for one of the writers. I’ll see what I can do to get answers!
