Cardinal Points is the Literary Journal of the Slavic Studies Department at Brown University. Issue editor: Boris Dralyuk. Editorial team includes: Boris Dralyuk, Irina Mashinski, Robert Chandler.
Issue 9 is now available for purchase:
Category: Fiction
Matter | A (somewhat) monthly journal of political poetry and commentary
Guest-edited by Larissa Shmailo and Philip Nikolaev, Issue 26 is dedicated to political poetry and prose in translation from Russian and written originally in English by writers with Russian affiliations.
In the spirit of 2019, at least two poets (Anna Halberstadt and Katia Kapovich) write about Stalin: “O motherland. O motherfuckerland,” sighs-screams Kapovich.
Olga Livshin and Polina Barskova (translated by Philip Nikolaev) are in conversation with Akhmatova.
Katherine E. Young translates Inna Kabysh:
More treasures here:
New Book Announcement — Lara Prescott’s debut novel “The Secrets We Kept”
“Translated into 29 languages, The Secrets We Kept is a thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love, duty, and sacrifice. Inspired by the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the 20th century: Doctor Zhivago. From Moscow and the Gulag to D.C. and Paris, The Secrets We Kept captures a watershed moment in the history of literature. Told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail, and centered on the belief that a piece of art can change the world.”
Publisher: Knopf
Editor: Jordan Pavlin
Pub Date: September 3, 2019
Agent: Jeff Kleinman and Jamie Chambliss at Folio Literary Management
In Lara Prescott’s ‘The Secrets We Kept,’ the CIA takes a novel approach to Cold War spycraft – The Washington Post
The publication history behind Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago provides the backbone of this debut novel. Joan Frank, reviewing for The Washington Post, remarks:
Significantly, these are women’s stories. Pasternak’s, while not marginal, is told by his longtime mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya — she who inspired “Zhivago’s” famous romantic lead, Lara (for whom Prescott happens to be named). Sent twice to a Gulag labor camp (described in horrific detail) as a result of her affiliation with him, Olga’s own astonishing account nearly eclipses his.
Tidying Up the Shelf: Quick & Basic Takes on Books by Ganieva, Yakovleva, and Stolpovskaya
Another one from Lisa Hayden of Lizok’s Bookshelf on novels by three contemporary Russian women writers: Alisa Ganieva, Yulia Yakovleva, and Olga Stolpovskaya.
http://lizoksbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/tidying-up-shelf-quick-basic-takes-on.html
My Lucky Day: The 2019 Yasnaya Polyana Longlist
Lisa Hayden of Lizok’s Bookshelf does a round-up of the longlist nominees for Russia’s Yasnaya Polyana award. There are several women on the longlist, including Alisa Ganieva and Guzel Yakhina. Russia’s literary prizes tend to disproportionately go to male writers. We’ll have to keep an eye on the shortlist, and the final result, of course, to see if this holds true here.
http://lizoksbooks.blogspot.com/2019/09/my-lucky-day-2019-yasnaya-polyana.html
A review of Larissa Shmailo’s Sly Bang
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.”
A Fantastical Traffic Jam by Akram Aylisli (Excerpt) Translated from the Russian by Katherine E. Young
From National Translators Month Page:
“We’re thrilled to share with you today an excerpt from the novella A Fantastical Traffic Jam by Azerbaijani political prisoner Akram Aylisli, translated from the Russian by the award-winning poet and translator Katherine E. Young. In her own words, “Many knowledgeable observers, including Aylisli himself, believe it was this novella that provoked the wrath of Azerbaijan’s current rulers and led to Aylisli’s persecution. He currently lives under de facto house arrest; his books have been burned, his wife and son were fired from their jobs, and at one time a bounty was offered to whomever would cut off his ear.” At NTM, we take pride in publishing brave works that speak truth to power, and this excerpt accomplishes exactly that.”
Profile of Lisa Hayden
One of our star translators from Russian got a lovely write-up in the Portland Press Herald. Personally, I first came to know Lisa through her amazing blog, dedicated to Russian literature, Lizok’s Bookshelf. It’s somehow wonderful to learn that Lisa grew up in a town called Norway, Maine. That’s such a big name for a town, and I’ve always wondered what it’s like to grow up in these places that are named after other places. (I say this, having spent considerable amount of time in my childhood thinking about Lenin’s relationship with Leningrad.)
Hayden grew up mostly in Norway, in Oxford County, where her family moved from New Hampshire when she was about 9. She first became interested in Russia and Russian history as a child because of stories published in Jack and Jill magazine based on the Russian fairy tale Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga is a Slavic folklore tale about a “grandmother witch” who lives deep in the forest and is not very good, but is not entirely evil.
When she was in the sixth grade, Hayden read her first English translation of Russian literature, a short story called “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov.
To learn more about Lisa Hayden, read the story here.
Review: Olga Zilberbourg’s “Like Water and Other Stories”
“The thread connecting these tales is each protagonist’s attempt to come to terms with an identity that is always in flux, transitioning between various contexts such as emigration, motherhood, partnership, and employment. For this reason, bicultural readers of varied backgrounds will likely hear their own experiences resonating with this collection.”
Anna Kasradze reviews Olga Zilberbourg’s debut collection in The Moscow Times:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/08/24/olga-zilberbourgs-like-water-and-other-stories-a66997
