Larissa Shmailo is a versatile poet and prose writer, editor and translator from Russian, with work in Brooklyn Rail, The Common, St. Petersburg Review, among other journals and anthologies.
Jefferson Hansen reviews her most recent novel for Rain Taxi: “This is a hilarious and horrifying novel. It depicts the worst humanity is capable of, but what keeps Sly Bang from becoming overwhelmed by the depravity it describes is the writerly energy of Shmailo. Wise cracks and madcap scenes burst one after another in a buoyant fashion—so it goes down easy in spite of the horrors it describes.”
Published by Olga Zilberbourg
Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. It also dives into topics of bisexuality and immigrant parenthood. Anthony Marra called it “…a book of succinct abundance, dazzling in its particulars, expansive in its scope,” and Karen Bender said, “Olga Zilberbourg is a writer to read right now.”
Zilberbourg’s writing has appeared in World Literature Today, The Believer, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Born in Leningrad, USSR in a Russian-speaking Jewish family, she makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание [Hold Your Breath] from Vremya Press. She serves as a consulting editor at Narrative Magazine and as a co-facilitator of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. Together with Yelena Furman, she has co-founded Punctured Lines, a feminist blog about literature from the former Soviet Union. She is currently at work on her first novel.
View all posts by Olga Zilberbourg
Punctured Lines 