Wait, what’s this about Ireland? Reading and listening recommendations for “When Women were Dragons,” “The EvoAngel,” and the music of @SeoLinn

Hello! Happy 2024! I hope the new year is starting out well for you, and if you’ve been getting any of the wild weather that’s been sweeping through the US, you’ve managed to survive it reasonably well. We had a tornado nearby-ish, meaning in the same general part of the state, but no major damage […]

Running down Memory Lane to Russia, Plus Hot Reads and Cool Freebies

Hi Everyone! I hope you are enjoying your 4th of July if you’re in the US, and staying cool if you’re anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. If you’re Down Under, I hope the winter is being reasonably mild and pleasant. Speaking of cooler climes, Facebook is reminding me that ten years ago I traveled by […]

“Vita Nostra” by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, Translated by Julia Meitov Hersey

I picked up “Vita Nostra” largely out of curiosity. I’d never heard of the authors before, but I’m always up for some Russian literature in translation, and the fact that it was contemporary fantasy made it even more intriguing. But when diving into these things, you never know what you’re going to get. And indeed, […]

#TranslationThursday: “Day of the Oprichnik” by Vladimir Sorokin, Translated by Jamey Gambrell

“Day of the Oprichnik” has been hailed as one of the classics of post-Soviet fiction, and for good reason. It’s a brilliant satire of Russian society past and present. It’s also deeply disturbing and difficult to read for that reason. But first, the title. Since Russian doesn’t have articles, the literal translation of the original […]

#TranslationThursday: “The Dead Wander in the Desert” by Rollan Seisenbayev

In “The Dead Wander in the Desert,” we see the final, painful days of the Soviet Union, juxtaposed with the final, painful days of the Aral Sea, as a once-bountiful land dries up and turns to a poisonous, salt-filled desert. The characters in the book fight to preserve the sea, but in vain: the central […]

What Are We All Reading?

Hi Everyone! I’ve been busy–and exhausted and sore–from the beginning of the semester and returning to teaching, so I don’t have a lot of news to share right now. So I thought I’d do another reading roundup. A number of you wrote back to me the last time I asked for reading recommendations, and now […]

#TranslationThursday “The Slynx” by Tatyana Tolstaya

“The Slynx” is one of those works that kept circulating on the edge of my reading consciousness. People were always bringing it up in conversation as something that, of course, we’d all read. Except that I hadn’t. So I finally decided to rectify this error and fill this lacuna in my reading knowledge. Let’s get […]

“Stalingrad” by Vasily Grossman, Translated by Robert Chandler

Probably the Russian literature event of the year in the English-speaking world has been the publication of the English translation of Vasily Grossman’s “Stalingrad,” the first part of his two-part series about the battle of Stalingrad that concludes with “Life and Fate.” Me reading “Life and Fate” for my PhD comps while camping out on […]

“Beyond Tula: A Soviet Pastoral” by Andrei Egunov-Nikolev

Fasten your seatbelts, Russianists: it’s about to get weird. Well, maybe no weirder than usual for literature of this period. Russian literature of the early 20th century was gloriously, insanely bizarre. Writers were flying their freak flag high, and reveling in it. “Beyond Tula” is a case in point. Although in fact, it’s no weirder […]

Who Are You Reading? Plus My Own Reading Recommendations and This Week’s Giveaways

Hi All! The insistent barking coming in through my windows suggests that we are, in fact, in the dog days of summer. So if you’re caught up in one of the record-breaking heat waves washing over the planet right now and looking for some cool indoor reading, I’ve got a list of what I’ve read […]