Trip Report: Peaks Island. In Praise of Close-to-Home Travel. A List of Russia’s Open Book Books.

I generally only write reports about big trips with overnight stays—New York for BookExpo America, other American cities for American Literary Translators Association conferences, Moscow for translator congresses…—but a recent three-hour trip to Peaks Island, where I helped host a screening of the documentary Russia’s Open Book: Writing in the Age of Putin at the Peaks Island branch of the Portland Public Library, made for an enjoyable evening. It also brought some realizations about how important it is to get out and tell the public about Russian literature and literary translation.

First, a bit of background, presented rather inelegantly, to save space… “Russia Resurgent” was the topic for this year’s Camden Conference, fwhich is held annually in Camden, Maine, a couple hours up the coast from where I live. Though a three-day conference in Camden is the centerpiece, there’s also a huge multi-month schedule of community events around the state. I was involved with three: I read excerpts from some of my translations at libraries in Scarborough and Kennebunk (a third event, in Brunswick, was cancelled because of bad weather), and helped host a screening of Russia’s Open Book at the Scarborough Public Library, attended by the film’s co-directors, Sarah Willis and Paul Mitchell. Though the Peaks Island trip wasn’t part of the Camden Conference schedule, it came out of the Scarborough screening.

Every event was fun. I love reading from my translations—these readings included excerpts from works by Margarita Khemlin, Vladislav Otroshenko, Eugene Vodolazkin, and Marina Stepnova—and the audiences in Scarborough and Kennebunk were wonderful. People asked questions about everything from how I got started in translation to how I work and how I know my translations are correct. It’s a big plus that public readings can be a great way to gauge your success in conveying humor. And people ask where and how they can find and buy the translated books.

The two screenings of Russia’s Open Book took a little less energy—reading for an hour is tiring even when Q&A is interspersed!—but were at least as rewarding. People engage well with the film’s excerpts from four novels, which are read by Stephen Fry and accompanied by animation. There’s context-setting talk with Russian critics. The ending, with Vladimir Sorokin’s comments about the future, chills my spine (and yes, I mean that literally) every time, even though I know what’s coming. And an hour is perfect to present detail about six writers without putting anyone to sleep. Lots of questions come up: do Russian writers often create parallel universes, do these writers make a living from their fiction, what’s the situation for Russian bookstores. And people ask where and how they can find and buy the translated books.

The audience at the Peaks Island screening even asked if I could create a list of books in English translation by the six writers in Russia’s Open Book. I can. And it’s below. I didn’t see much of Peaks Island during the three hours I was there (particularly since it was dark when I left) but I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the couple dozen people who came to the library on a cold and very windy night. Meeting them—and the people who came to my events in Scarborough and Kennebunk—feels like a perfect antidote to complaints that translators (and even translated literature) are invisible and go unrecognized. People do care about translation, readers are interested in Russian fiction in translation, and I’m glad so many translators make the effort to read from and speak about their work in their communities. The more I get out, the more I realize how important that is.

Without further ado, here’s the list I promised to the Peaks Island audience. Perhaps it will be helpful to other libraries and institutions that screen the film. And please do let me know if I missed anything! Two notes. First, five of the six writers in the film have books available in English translation; Mariam Petrosyan is the exception. Second, I’ve linked each writer’s name to the bios I wrote for the Read Russia site, in preparation for BookExpo America 2012. The publication and awards lists there aren’t all up-to-date, but the bios still provide a fair bit of background on the writers as well as lists of some of the writers’ short fiction available in translation. And a third note: my “previous post” posts are written about the Russian originals, not the translations.

Zakhar Prilepin 

• Sankya (Disquiet International/Dzanc Books, 2014, tr. Mariya Gusev and Jeff Parker with Alina Ryabovolova. This book makes great use of glossaries.) (previous post)
• Sin (Glagoslav, 2012, tr. Simon Patterson and Nina Chordas) (previous post)

Ludmila Ulitskaya 

• The Big Green Tent (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015, tr. Bela Shayevich)
• Daniel Stein, Interpreter (The Overlook Press, 2011, tr. Arch Tait) (previous post)
• Sonechka (Schocken, 2005, tr. Arch Tait), novella and stories
• Medea and Her Children (Schocken, 2002, tr. Arch Tait)
• The Funeral Party: A Novel (Schocken, 2001, tr. Cathy Porter, edited by Arch Tait)

Dmitry Bykov

• Living Souls (Alma Books, 2011, tr. Cathy Porter) (previous post)

Anna Starobinets

• Catlantis (Pushkin Children’s Books, fall 2015, tr. Jane Bugaeva). Cat humor, romance, and adventure for children nine and up, plus cat lovers of all ages… more soon on Catlantis.
• The Icarus Gland (Skyscraper Publications, 2014, tr. James Rann). Short stories.
• The Living (Hesperus, 2012, tr. James Rann)
• An Awkward Age (Hesperus, 2011, tr. Hugh Aplin). Short fiction. (previous post)

Vladimir Sorokin

• The Blizzard (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, late 2015, tr. Jamey Gambrell), (previous post)
• Day of the Oprichnik (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, tr. Jamey Gambrell) (previous post). My favorite Sorokin book.
• The Ice Trilogy (New York Review Books, 2011, tr. Jamey Gambrell) (previous posts: first book and second book)
• The Queue (New York Review Books, 2008, tr. Sally Laird, first published in English in 1988 by Readers International Inc.). I’ve heard lots of great things about this book over the years… I’ve been saving The Queue for a cranky day!

You can screen Russia's Open Book, too, here or through Intelligent Channel's YouTube channel.

Disclaimers and disclosures: The usual and much more, for my work with Read Russia, talks with Sarah and Paul about the film…

Up next: Eugene Vodolzakin’s Solovyov and Larionov and Lena Eltang’s Cartagena, a complex murder mystery of sorts that I’m still reading slowly to appreciate all the details. Plus maybe a novella or two… Also, translators and publishers, please do send me titles and dates for this year’s releases: I’m hoping to post the 2015 translation list soon!

Photo: Econrad, creative commons, via Wikipedia

Happy New Year! & 2014 Highlights. The Footnotes Have It!

Happy new year! С Новым годом! I wish everyone an extraordinarily happy, healthy 2015 with an abundance of good, (whatever that may mean to you), fun, enjoyable books. This year, like last, turned out to be all about quality over quantity, with, alas, a plethora of abandoned books… fortunately, the good books more than made up for the books I didn’t finish. Here are some highlights.

Favorite book by an author I’d already read. I still haven’t posted about Evgeny Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, which I finished several months ago. But a post is on the way. Seriously. In brief, though, Solovyov is a Petersburg historian who goes to Crimea for a conference about Larionov, a White Army general. Much academic hilarity ensues. Some of it in footnotes. Of course there are many, many more elements--like timelessness and some malfeasance involving a document--to this fun novel, a big reason why it’s so difficult to write about…

Favorite book by an author I’d never read. This one has to be Evgeny Chizhov’s Translation from a Literal Translation, (previous post), which I loved for Chizhov’s grace in mixing genres, making an invented country work for this skeptical reader, and effectively describing all sorts of heat. I was glad to see that Translation won the Venets award last week from the Moscow Union of Writers.

Favorite book read in English. I admit that, as per the usual, I didn’t read as many Russia(n)-related books in English during 2014 as I might have... but that doesn’t mean Soviets, by Danzig Baldaev and Sergei Vasiliev, (previous post), isn’t worthy of another mention. The combination of detailed caricatures, black and white photos, and pointed captions is well worth reading and studying. This must be my year of loving footnotes: Soviets, translated by Polly Gannon and Ast A. Moore, contains lots of helpful explanatory notes. The publisher, Fuel, continues to produce beautiful books: I’ve been saving their Soviet Space Dogs, another attractive book, as a treat. The New Year holiday may be just the right time…

Favorite travel. Everything was good this year—BookExpo America in New York, the American Literary Translators Association conference in Milwaukee, and the Congress of Literary Translators in Moscow—but I have to vote for the Congress. Not much beats a trip to Moscow that includes a visit to Andrei Platonov’s grave, speaking about translating old language in contemporary novels, and having an opportunity to see so many of “my” writers, not to mention translator colleagues from all over. It was especially fun and helpful to meet the afore-mentioned Evgeny Vodolazkin and talk about his Laurus, which I’m busily working on now…

What’s coming up in 2015? Top blogging priority is to get caught up on posts. And I’m still trying to figure out ways to capture notes and comments about some of the books I abandon. Often hundreds of pages in, like, let’s say, Zakhar Prilepin’s The Cloister, a book that offers a new aesthetic for prison camp novels but just wasn’t going anywhere for me, or Vladimir Sorokin’s Tellurium, which seemed to rehash too many Sorokin books I’d already read. I suppose one way to capture this information is to write by-the-by notes, or add a “Biggest Disappointment of the Year” paragraph to my year-end posts. I could have written that paragraph this year about Prilepin’s book, which won the Big Book Prize. I could say that Konstantin Milchin sums up my problems with The Cloister beautifully here, noting, among other things, (and I’ll paraphrase) that the novel, which is a bit lacking on the plot side, could have been 300 pages or 1,000 pages long, all to, roughly the same effect. (For the record, I read around 270 pages so didn’t come up very short on that 300 figure...) I was very happy that Milchin mentions Prilepin’s language, which hardly seems to vary among his 1920s characters, who speak in suspiciously (my word!) modern terms. I’d wondered about this but, as a non-native reader of Russian, thought maybe I was too demanding, particularly given my work on Laurus, where it’s an understatement to say the dialogue sure does vary.

A reading priority for 2015: I’m hoping to keep reminding myself to look for more books published by smaller publishers and literary journals…

Thank You! Finally, another big thank you to everyone who visits the blog, whether regularly or occasionally. Happy New Year to everyone! And happy reading!

Up Next: Vodolazkin’s Solovyov and Larionov, Marina Stepnova’s The Italian Lessons (Безобжный переулок), and Alexey Nikitin’s Victory Park, which is off to a great start… Also, a list of translations coming out in 2015. I’m taking names and titles, so send them on in now!

Disclaimers. The usual.

Image credit: Fireworks in Bratislava, New Year 2005, from Ondrejk, via Wikipedia.

The 2014 Big Book Award Winners

Just a very quick post with this year’s Big Book Award winners. There weren’t any real surprises here. I would have loved to have seen Evgeny Chizhov win something—anything!—for his Translation from a Literal Translation, (previous post), which I liked so much but, well…

The jury awards went to:

• The top prize was awarded to Zakhar Prilepin’s Обитель (The Cloister). A novel about the Solovetsky Islands in the 1920s. The Cloister already won the Book of the Year award and is also a finalist for the Russian Booker. I’ve been reading The Cloister for a while and it will take me another while to finish: it’s very long and rather detailed.
• Vladimir Sorokin took second place for Теллурия (Tellurium). On my NatsBest long list post, I wrote: A polyphonic novel in 50 highly varying chapters. I read about 150 pages before setting Tellurium aside: Sorokin’s use of a futuristic medieval setting, tiny and huge people, kinky stuff, sociopolitical observations, and a novel (ha!) psychotropic agent all felt way too familiar after Day of the Oprichnik, The Blizzard, and The Sugar Kremlin. Shortlisted for this year’s National Bestseller.
• Vladimir Sharov won third place for Возвращение в Египет (Return to Egypt). In which one Kolya Gogol (a distant relative of familiar old Nikolai Gogol) finishes writing Dead Souls. An epistolary novel. Shortlisted for this year’s National Bestseller and Russian Booker.

Reader awards went to:

• Svetlana Aleksievich was the favorite in readers’ voting, for her Время секонд хэнд (See Second-Hand Time for a detailed description and a list of translations). Nonfiction about Russia’s post-Soviet history.
• Zakhar Prilepin won second place from readers for Обитель (The Cloister). A novel about the Solovetsky Islands in the 1920s.
• Third prize went to Aleksei Makushinskii’s Пароход в Аргентину (Steamship to Argentina), a novel about émigré life and Proustian searches.

Up Next: Books, likely starting with Viktor Remizov’s Ashes and Dust, a very worthy Big Book finalist about poachers and corruption in the taiga.

Disclaimers: The usual.

2014 Russian Booker Finalists

Here you go, Russian Booker fans… the 2014 short list, in Russian alphabetical order. Winners will be announced on December 5. The Russian Booker will award two prizes again this year: one to a “usual” winner, the other in the form of a grant to publish an English-language translation in the UK.

• Anatolii Vishnevskii’s Жизнеописание Петра Степановича К. (The Story of the Life/Biography of Petr Stepanovich K.). The description of this book, which is evidently completely based on documents, is a little vague: it’s apparently about a man who lives a long life but wanted glory more than longevity, though longevity gives him a chance to see a lot. 
  
  
  
• Natalya Gromova’s Ключ. Последняя Москва (The Key. The Last/Final Moscow). This one’s called an archival novel, and it apparently focuses largely on the 1930s and a Moscow that no longer exists. Gromova works at the Tsvetaeva house museum in Moscow. There’s more here. The Key is already a 2014 Big Book finalist.
  
  
• Zakhar Prilepin’s Обитель (The Cloister). This novel about the Solovetsky Islands in the 1920s is already on the 2014 Big Book finalist list, and it won Book of the Year last month. I lugged it back from Moscow (it’s big) and plan to read it soon. Probably right after the next book on this list…
  
  
• Viktor Remizov’s Воля вольная. (This is the book with the title that translates literally as something like Willful Will or Free Freedom but Remizov told me he’d use something closer to Soaring Will. Though he wasn’t even quite sure how to explain the title…) In any case, this is a novel about poaching, corruption, and conflict in the Russian Far East… though there’s much more to it than that. I’m looking forward to reading it. [Description edited after reading the book.]
  
  
  
• Elena Skul’skaia’s Мраморный лебедь (The Marble Swan). According to Novaya gazeta, this is memoiristic writing about friends and family. Even a quick look at the text on the Zhurnal’nyi zal site shows that it’s made up of vignettes/tiny chapters.
  
  
• Vladimir Sharov’s Возвращение в Египет (Return to Egypt). In which one Kolya Gogol (a distant relative of familiar old Nikolai Gogol) finishes writing Dead Souls. An epistolary novel. Already a finalist for this year’s National Bestseller and Big Book awards.

One of the most interesting things about this year’s Booker short list, at least for me, is that four of the six books—Gromova, Prilepin, Remizov, and Sharov—are or will soon be (re)published by editor Elena Shubina’s imprint at AST. And what can I say but that Shubina is a force? And I just seem to gravitate to her books: she published two of the books I’m translating (Marina Stepnova’s The Women of Lazarus and Evgeny Vodolazkin’s Laurus) and now I’m reading Stepnova’s new book and about to read Remizov’s (coming soon from Shubina/AST) and Prilepin’s. I’m also looking forward to reading the tome of Andrei Platonov’s letters she published last winter… more about that one in my Moscow trip report this weekend.

Disclaimers: Just the usual.

Up next: Moscow trip report. Then, at last, books! Evgeny Vodolazkin’s first novel, Solovyov and Larionov, which I enjoyed very, very much (footnotes have never been so much fun), and Marina Stepnova’s latest book, named for Moscow’s Bezbozhnyi Lane. Plus a few books I’ve read in English.

Monday Miscellany: Zakhar Prilepin’s Literary Lists

I love lists—particularly when they catalogue contemporary Russian fiction—so wanted to be sure to post two lists of Zakhar Prilepin’s favorite books and stories from the noughties before I forget their existence.

Both lists appear online and both are taken from Prilepin’s new book, Книгочёт. There’s an interesting mix here: several writers I’d never heard of, a clump of books that didn’t grab me, some unread items on my shelf, and writers I’ve enjoyed very much. Several books and stories have even been translated. The lists are long, so I’ll keep the commentary short… but I’m always happy to hear recommendations!

Novels first:

• Aleksei Ivanov’s Блуда и МУДО (I’ve seen the title rendered as Cheap Porn). Waiting on my shelf... I’m a little scared of this one because of high expectations. Like Prilepin, I thought Ivanov’s Geographer was good (previous post) but not great.
• Aleksandr Kuznetsov-Tulianin’s Язычник (The Heathen or The Pagan)—Kuznetsov-Tulianin is a new name for me. Журнальный зал calls this an ethnographic novel.
• Mikhail Gigolashvili’s Чёртово колесо (The Devil’s Wheel)—One of my own big, big favorites (previous post). I just love this book.
• Vladimir “Adol’fych” Nesterenko’s Огненное погребение (literally something like Fiery Burial)—Another new name for me. Crime.
• Mikhail Shishkin’s Письмовник (Letter-Book)—Letter-Book will be out in Andrew Bromfield’s English translation in 2013 (previous post). Won the 2011 Big Book.
• Aleksandr Garros and Aleksei Evdokimov’s [Голово]ломка (Headcrusher)—2003 NatsBest winner. Also on my shelf; it never seems to appeal to me. Available in Andrew Bromfield’s translation.
• Andrei Rubanov’s Сажайте, и вырастет! (Do Time Get Time)—Andrew Bromfield translated Do Time Get Time and recommended Rubanov; alas, my usual book sites and stores never seem to have this particular book.
• Sergei Samsonov’s Аномалия Камлаева (The Kamlaev Anomaly)—I’ve only read Samsonov’s Oxygen Limit, which I thought was flawed (previous post), but Anomaly sounds better.
• Aleksandr Terekhov’s Каменный мост (The Stone Bridge)—Coming out soon from Glagoslav in Simon Patterson’s translation. Another nonfavorite, though several friends loved it.
• Dmitrii Bykov’s trilogy of Оправдание (Justification), Орфография (Orthography), and Остромов, или Ученик чародея (Ostromov, Or the Sorcerer’s Apprentice)—Though I couldn’t get through either Justification or Ostromov, which won the 2011 NatsBest, I swear I will try Orthography. Too many of you have recommended it.

The stories and novellas sound even better to me:

• Mikhail Tarkovskii’s “Гостиница «Океан»” (“The Hotel ‘Ocean’”)—This story is in Tarkovskii’s collection that won the Yasnaya Polyana award in 2010.
• Sergei Shargunov’s Ура! (Hurrah!)—On the shelf; a small book.
• Olga Slavnikova’s “Басилевс” (“Basileus”)—In the Read Russia! anthology, translated by Andrew Bromfield. About a cat; the beginning looks great.
• German Sadulaev’s Я чеченец! (I Am a Chechen!)—Available in Anna Gunin’s English translation.
• Marina Stepnova’s “Бедная Антуанетточка” (“Poor Little Antoinette”)
• Dmitrii Danilov’s “Чёрный и зелёный” (“Black and Green”)—On my reader… hmm, maybe I’ll read this next. July 25 update: I’m thoroughly enjoying  “Black and Green”; the title refers to tea. 
• Roman Senchin’s “Конец сезона” (“The End of the Season”)
• Mikhail Elizarov’s “Госпиталь” (“The Hospital”)
• Il’dar Abuziarvov’s “Троллейбус, идущий на Восток” (“Trolleybus Going East”)
• Maia Kucherskaia’s “Кукушка” (“The Cuckoo”)

Up Next: St. Petersburg Noir, a story by Alexander Snegirev, and Maria Galina’s Mole Crickets, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

Disclaimers: The usual. Many of the writers on these lists were at BookExpo America last month. 

Ы!: Zakhar Prilepin’s Black Monkey

The core of Zakhar Prilepin’s novel The Black Monkey tells the story of the implosion of a contemporary Russian nuclear family—narrated by a nameless father who tells of his nameless son, nameless daughter, and nameless wife—that ends (almost) not with a bang but with the whimper of the letter ы. Prilepin extends his range beyond the family by inserting set pieces from other times and places that show the destruction of other families and, by extension, societies. One story, set in Africa, includes an extreme example of in loco parentis, for child soldiers, plus mentions of, apparently, celebrity mom Angelina Jolie.

Since Prilepin is, thank goodness, still Prilepin, he juxtaposes episodes of misbehavior, stupidity, and cruelty, some quite nasty, with tenderness, particularly his mixed-up narrator’s love for his small children. He feeds them, reads to them, and worries about them. His descriptions of how they unlock the apartment door when he rings, dragging a chair to the door so they can reach the lock, felt especially sweet. Meanwhile, stories of child violence and the father’s visits to his mistress and a prostitute led this reader to wonder what will happen to these kids who chew gum like a meat grinder and eat whatever hotdogs and pel’meni their nameless father puts on their plates…

The Black Monkey worked best for me as an atmospheric novel, in large part because Prilepin combines realism and abstraction, using language that has a quick, modern flow. The novel has wonderfully mischievous humor that felt especially vivid after seeing and hearing Prilepin at BookExpo America. And the book is a page-turner, albeit in a strange way: I didn’t especially look forward to reading it but it held my interest and kept me reading whenever I picked it up, despite a somewhat disjointed structure that, I must admit, fits the topic. Most telling, though, is that The Black Monkey keeps knocking around my poor skull; it dug its way into my subconscious.

For me, the highlight of The Black Monkey was a brief scene where Nameless Dad reads to his  children from a primer. The primer, though, is unusual: the letters aren’t presented in alphabetical order. Instead, they’re listed “будто в строгий порядок букв упал камень и все рассыпал,” (“as if a rock fell into the strict order and scattered everything”). The book presents “a,” the first letter of the alphabet, then another vowel, “у,” which occurs in the second half of the alphabet and sounds like “oo.” Dad plays with words for a bit with his kids then leaves them, saying he’s going for cigarettes. He calls his mistress and plays more with the primer’s words as he trots down the stairs and, literally, runs into his wife at the entrance to the apartment building.

Nameless Dad calls his mistress, Alya, again from her building’s entryway, pronouncing three vowel sounds, “Ы. У. О.” (“Y. U. O.”… though “ы” doesn’t sound like “y,” it sounds like the tiny ы audio on this page). Alya asks, “Кто это?” (“Who is this?”), addressing a Big Issue of Nameless Guy’s life that goes along with the collapse of his family, the disordering of his alphabet (scary for a journalist), and all that violence. I’d say the letter ы wins a place of (dis?)honor in the book: Nameless Dad’s last utterance is a pained “Ы-ы-ы!” Accompanied by thoughts of Hell.

Up next: Alexander Ilichevsky’s Анархисты (The Anarchists), which I’m enjoying even more than I’d hoped. And St. Petersburg Noir, which is going to the beach with me this afternoon. And more 2012 Big Book Award finalists… The Black Monkey is the first I’ve read.

Disclaimers: The usual.

Image credit: Letter ы from OwenBlacker, via Wikipedia. 

Favorite Russian Writers A to Я: Pushkin, Pasternak, Platonov, Panova

Well, I’ve done the unthinkable twice today: first I posted a piece to the wrong blog, for which I apologize, now I’ve skipped the letters N (Н) and O in my “Favorite Russian Writers” series. I don’t mean to disappoint fans of Nabokov, Nekrasov, Odoevsky, or Okudzhava but I don’t have any real, true favorites among those letters… despite enjoying Nabokov’s Gogol and some of Ostrovsky’s plays. Beyond a dearth of N and O favorites, the letter P (П) is so much more fun that I’m happy to jump N and O…

The letter P, of course, has to start with Alexander Pushkin, who would be a favorite just for his Повести Белкина (Belkin Tales) (previous post) and the short story “Пиковая дама” (“Queen of Spades”). They get better for me with each rereading. And then there’s all the poetry…

Moving into the Soviet era, I can’t not mention Boris Pasternak, whose Доктор Живаго (Doctor Zhivago) I read multiple times in grad school. Even if I didn’t enjoy Zhivago as much when I read it four years ago (previous post), I still have a deep sentimental attachment to my experiences (re)reading and talking about the book in school, trying to figure out the meaning of the rowan tree and gathering references to sources of light so I could write a paper. Plus there’s the Pasternak dacha, which I visited regularly when I lived in Moscow.

Platonov's grave, Moscow. 

Then we have Andrei Platonov, whose “Возвращение” (“The Return”) is one of the most perfect short stories I’ve ever read. I think “Родина электричества” (“The Motherland of Electricity”) was my introduction to Platonov, though, followed by his difficult Котлован (The Foundation Pit) (previous post) and his wonderfully disorienting Ювенильное море (Juvenile Sea or Sea of Youth) (previous post). I think disorientation is what I love so much about Platonov: his word choices, word order, and word inventions create texts that jar me linguistically and emotionally. Platonov may be my favorite of these favorites. 

Another favorite is Vera Panova, whose novella Серёжа (translated as Seryozha and Time Walked and A Summer to Remember) is a beautiful account of a child’s life with his mother and new stepfather. My previous post generated lots of very enthusiastic comments from people who first read Seryozha in Tamil, Bengali, and other languages. I thought Panova’s Спутники, (The Train), about people who work on a hospital train during World War 2, was also very good.

Among contemporary writers, Zakhar Prilepin is probably my closest to a favorite, thanks to his Грех (Sin) and a few short stories that I also thought were very good; I enjoyed his political novel Санькя (San’kya) far less.

Bonus! Daniel Kalder, who writes a weekly column for RIA Novosti, sent the link to his interview with Russian critic Lev Danilkin; it’s in English. Danilkin mentions Prilepin and another P writer—Victor Pelevin—as popular, even naming Pelevin when asked “Who are the great authors of today?” I was particularly happy to see Danilkin mention books that discuss the October events of 1993… Enjoy!

Up next: Andrei Rubanov’s Жизнь удалась (All That Glitters, on his literary agency’s page). And more soon about Read Russia and BookExpo America… 

Photo: SreeBot, via Wikipedia.