Category: Autofiction

Creating a Vivid World: A Q&A with Lisa C. Hayden, the translator of Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 3 Comments
Book cover of My Dreadful Body

The publication of Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body by New Vessel Press earlier this year is an important contribution to feminist russophone literature available to readers in English translation. Following the excerpt from this novel we published recently from the opening of the seventh chapter, “Tongue,” we’re taking the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the context, structure, and language of this remarkable book in our interview with its translator, Lisa C. Hayden. We are deeply grateful to Hayden, who also brought to anglophone readers books by Guzel Yakhina, Margarita Khemlin, Narine Abgaryan, Marina Stepnova, and Katerina Gordeeva, among others, for insights into her translation work.

Olga Zilberbourg: What considerations went into your decision to translate My Dreadful Body?

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Tongue: An Excerpt from Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body, translated by Lisa C. Hayden

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 1 Comment

We’re celebrating today the arrival of an eagerly anticipated novel that portrays the life of a young woman from a traditional Azerbaijani community in Russia. A feminist poet, essayist, scholar, and educator, Egana Djabbarova is the author of five books in Russian. In English, her work has previously appeared in the anthology F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry, edited by Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ainsley Morse (read our conversation with Ostashevsky and Morse). My Dreadful Body is Djabbarova’s first book in translation to English. The team behind this book includes Lisa C. Hayden, a beloved and celebrated translator from Russian, and New Vessel Press, an indie publisher specializing in literature in translation with a very strong list of titles from the countries of the former Soviet Union.

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“everybody knows . . .” An Excerpt from Nadezhda in the Dark by Yelena Moskovich

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 2 Comments

Today, in the US, we welcome a new book by Ukrainian-born American and French author Yelena Moskovich. Innovative Dzanc Books is bringing to us Nadezhda in the Dark, a novel-in-verse, previously published in the United Kingdom by Footnote Press. We’re deeply grateful to independent presses that make great books accessible to readers across the world. Please support Dzanc Books by ordering your copy today!

When asked to contribute our responses to this book, Yelena Furman said:

“Brimming with references from Russian and Ukrainian literatures to Alla Pugacheva and the Moscow 1990s gay club scene, Nadezhda in the Dark is a poetic disquisition on global history and self-identity. Discussions of Soviet anti-Semitism and the war in Ukraine merge with explorations of immigration and queer love. In language simultaneously lyrical and sharp, Moskovich shows how the personal and political, the present and past, are inextricably linked in ways that are often traumatic but also occasionally hopeful.”

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Secrets: An Excerpt from Nataliya Meshchaninova’s Stories of a Life, translated by Fiona Bell

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 2 Comments

Nataliya Meshchaninova is Russian filmmaker. In 2017, she published a book of autobiographical short stories that resonated with her audience, in part, because they supported the Russian #metoo movement. In February 2022, Deep Vellum brought out Fiona Bell’s translation of Meshchaninova’s book under the title Stories of a Life. We are honored to share with you an excerpt from this book, a section from the fourth chapter, “Secrets.”

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Revealing Poetry from Within: An Interview with Alla Gorbunova, by Alexandra Tkacheva

~ Olga Zilberbourg ~ 1 Comment

Alla Gorbunova is a Russian poet, prose writer, translator, and critic. She has published six books of poetry and four books of prose, and her work regularly appears in major literary journals, including Znamia, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, Vozdukh, TextOnly, and others. Gorbunova’s poems and prose have been translated into many languages. She has taken part in Russian and international festivals of poetry and prose, and in 2012 participated in poetry readings in New York and Chicago. English-language translations of her poems and prose have appeared in Poetry, Words Without Borders, Columbia Journal, Modern Poetry in Translation, New England Review, and Nashville Review.

The English translation of her book of prose It’s the End of the World, My Love by Elina Alter is forthcoming from Deep Vellum Press in 2022. Gorbunova is a laureate of Russia’s most prestigious literary awards, including the Andrei Bely Prize, the NOS Literary Prize, and the Debut Prize. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy at St. Petersburg State University.

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