Tatiana Bokova is a popular writer, poet and composer. She has been awarded the Venets Prize for her contribution to children’s literature and has won a number of international songwriting competitions.

by Konstantin Milchin

The forthcoming London Book Fair will provide a special focus on the most talked-about talent in contemporary Russian literature. Russian literature has started to regain the spring in its step in the 21st century. The most interesting works on offer today will be presented at the London Book Fair – Russia Market Focus 2011, which will take place from April 11-13 at Earls Court.

This year, Russia will become the main participant in the international literary event in the UK. Some 50 Russian writers, poets, and literary critics, along with about 70 publishers, will take part in the Russian program at the annual London Book Fair in April."This is very symbolic, that in the 40th year of the London Book Fair, Russia has become its central party," says the head of the event, Alister Bertenshou.

by Catherine Neilan

The London Book Fair has selected Russia as the market focus and guest of honour for 2011's event, in conjunction with the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication.

Video poetry is a new phenomena in the contemporary Russian arts scene. In today’s world, media has no limits - information is mixed together with a myriad of fast, dynamic images, and punchy sounds. Video poetry has incorporated these elements that are all around us and used them to create a new art form which has become extremely popular in Russia during the last couple of years. Leading experimental poets and film directors, including Kirill Serebrennikov and Valeria Gai Germanika, amongst others, have come together to create films based on poems read by the poets themselves. The performances are also strongly influenced by European artists of the 70s and 80s, such as Gianni Toti, Richard Kostelanetz, Arnaldo Antunes and Caterina Davinio, whose experimental work was considered arthouse and cutting edge thirty years ago, but seems to strike a chord with the world we live in today. In our culture of multi-media, the merging of poetry, music and film feels only natural. ACADEMIA ROSSICA will be premiering three programmes of video poetry at SLOVO literature festival. The three programmes will offer a unique opportunity to see the works of fifteen of the most important names in Russian video poetry, including Andrei Rodionov, Inna Kabysh and Alina Butokhnovskaya. Programme 1 & 3 will be screened at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly at 18.30 on 20 & 22 April. To book tickets, call 0871 220 6000 or go to www.apollocinemas.com Programme 2 includes readings from cutting edge contemporary Russian and British poets and takes place at Calvert 22 art gallery at 18.30. Attendance is by invitation only. These events are part of the SLOVO festival and organised in collaboration with Tom Chivers and Penned in the Margins. These programmes are curated by Andrei Rodionov, one of the leading contemporary Russian poets and Ekaterina Troepolskaya, who also curates the Piataya Noga video poetry festival.

Rossica Young Translators Award was established in 2009 to support young people who are passionate about the world of translation and to encourage literary translation amongst those who study and speak Russian. With the help of this award we would like to nurture a new generation of Russian to English translators, as well as encourage cultural dialogue. What is more, this award casts a spotlight on the newest developments in Russian literature by selecting extracts for translation from the latest releases by acclaimed contemporary authors.

Daniel Stein, Interpreter Ludmila Ulitskaya. Overlook Press (currently being printed) Ludmila Ulitskaya (born 1943) works in an area that could be defined as intellectual female prose. Ulitskaya has received an impressive array of various awards, the most recent of which is the French Simone de Beauvoir Prize (2011). A true story, it follows the escapades of a Polish Jew, who by a sheer miracle managed to not only survive the Second World War but also to save hundreds of people from Nazi concentration camps. Based on the life of translator, hero, monk and ecumenist Oswald Rufeisen (1922–1998), the novel was both praised and disparaged in Russia, yet won Ulitskaya the Big Book award.

The Helmet of Horror Viktor Pelevin. Canongate Books Eight people meet on a certain website in a certain chat room. They begin communicating and through some innuendos and tiny details they, as well as the reader, quickly gather that they are locked in a virtual labyrinth. The very same labyrinth as featured in the Theseus and Minotaur myth. As they try to escape, fearing an encounter with the beast, they are still communicating with each other. A near consensus has been reached in Russia regarding Pelevin (born in 1962). Literary circles tend to agree that he is “our one and all” and writer number one. Once a year, as autumn approaches, Pelevin publishes a new novel, novella or a collection of short stories in which he renders an accurate, if rather cynical, description of life in Russia. His works will be a true treasure trove for future historians.

The Night Watch Sergei Lukyanenko. Arrow Books Ltd Besides ordinary citizens, there are “others” living in this world. They have the outward appearance of ordinary people but they are gifted with supernatural powers. The “others” are divided into “dark” (bad) and “white” (good). The main character in the series, Anton Gorodetsky, is a white magician working in the the "night watch", a white special service charged with ensuring the dark forces do not work their mischief at night. A former psychiatrist, Sergei Lukyanenko (born 1968) is the most popular and best-selling author among contemporary Russian science fiction writers; he is also one of the most popular bloggers in the Russianlanguage internet. In the Night Watch series, he has created a parallel universe exactly like ours – even the major historical events are the same – only everything in it is explained by the confrontation of the dark and white.

Paris Weekend Sergei Kostin. Enigma Books The tale of Paco Araya, a dashing Russian superspy working undercover in the US who comes to Paris for the weekend. While attending to some personal business, he must also locate a lost container holding a hazardous substance. Kostin’s publishing house insists he himself is not a spy, but he has extensively studied the ins and outs of the world's intelligence services. There is a distinct deficit of good-quality spy novels in Russia, but Kostin’s work is a cut above the coffee-table action novels that permeate the mass market.

It's 2033; 20 years have passed since nuclear war destroyed the world and the pitiful remnants of Moscow's population is struggling to survive in Metro stations and tunnels where they have established a primitive economy, raising pigs and growing tea. Meanwhile, they have also created over a dozen mini-states, some on the outskirts that suffer from mutant invasions, and from where one inhabitant goes on a journey in search of help. Dmitry Glukhovsky was born in Moscow in 1979 and has lived in Israel, Germany and France. It took him eight years to write Metro 2033, which may partly explain his book’s popularity: it is not merely postapocalyptic science fiction, but a true coming-of-age novel.

16 April – 7 May 2011
The RSC announces Rona Munro's "Little Eagles" at Hampstead Theatre.
A story about the battle for military supremacy during the Cold War, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first orbit around the earth.

29 March - 23 April, Finborough Theatre
Based on the 1927 black and white Russian film by Abram Room, Bed and Sofa is a musical written by Polly Pen and Laurence Klavan.

Over 50 of Russia’s leading authors are preparing to fly to the UK in April for a widespread programme of literary events. Discover the writers who are making the coffee houses of Moscow and St Petersburg buzz with excitement, debate and laughter. The full schedule of events in London and around the UK has been announced.

Elena Chizhova, a former economist, teacher and entrepreneur, finally turned to writing in 1996 after being rescued from a burning cruise ship. Since that time she has been consumed by the need to write, and has enjoyed considerable success as a result. Chizhova’s prose shuns trickery in favour of emotional honesty in order to probe the weeping sores of Russian history that contemporary culture would sooner forget.

Born in 1947 in Moscow, Leonid Yuzefovich spent his youth in the Urals, graduating from the History Faculty of Perm University. He then became an officer in the Soviet Army, serving in Buryatia and Mongolia. Since 1984 he has lived in Moscow. With a PhD in history, Yuzefovich worked for many years as a school history teacher and did not start writing in earnest until late in life.

Mikhail Weller was born in 1948. He graduated with a degree in philology from Leningrad University in 1972. After university he worked in many different areas, including working as a logger in the taiga, a hunter, a shepherd, a teacher and a journalist. In recent years he has delivered lectures on modern Russian literature at the universities of Milan, Jerusalem and Copenhagen.

Andrey Usachev was born in 1958 in Moscow. He attended the Moscow Institute of Electronics but left to study humanities at Tver State University. His first published work appeared in 1985, and from 1988 he has been a full-time author, mainly of work for children. Usachev has been extremely prolific, having had 150 books published in Russia.

Maria Stepanova is a graduate of the Literature Institute. She has worked in various media, and since 2007 has been the chief editor of the literary internet portal Openspace.ru. Stepanova is the author of several poetry collections, winning many major national and international awards, like the German Hubert Burda prize in 2006. Her works also have appeared in many of Russia’s literary magazines including Zerkalo, Kriticheskaya Massa and Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (NLO)

Olga Slavnikova graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Ekaterinburg State University in 1981 and began publishing fiction in the late 1980s during which time she was also fiction editor, then managing editor, of the literary magazine Ural. Slavnikova has lived and worked in Moscow since 2001.

Born in 1947 in Moscow, Lev Rubinstein worked as a librarian while he took part in the Russian literary underground, a job that at least partly inspired his use of the index card as poetic medium. Rubinstein's central importance to the Russian avant-garde, and his artistic affinities with international experimental poetry, make him an essential figure in both Russian and world poetry; that he has been translated into German, French, Swedish, Polish, and English indicates the already-existing regard for his achievements.

Zakhar Prilepin was born near Ryazan in 1975. Prilepin had a varied life before dedicating himself to writing, spending time as a student, as a labourer, as a journalist and as a soldier, serving with the Special Forces in Chechnya. More recently Prilepin has come to the public attention not only as one of the best writers of his generation, but as a committed, and often controversial, political activist on behalf of the ‘Other Russia’ coalition. Prilepin lives in Nizhny Novgorod where he is the regional editor of independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Dmitry Kuzmin, born in 1968, graduated from Moscow State University for Pedagogics and taught literature, working as an assistant professor of foreign literature and literary translation. In 1989 Kuzmin founded the Vavilon Union of Young Poets, the organisational hub for Moscow’s experimental poetry scene. In 1996 he started the Vavilon Internet project, an online anthology of current Russian writing. Since 1993 he has been the head of ARGO-RISK Publishers producing about 20 new poetry titles annually.

Dmitry Kosyrev is one of Russia’s leading thriller writers. Kosyrev, who writes under the distinctive alias Master Chen, a legacy of his long-standing interest in the Far East, was born in 1955 and studied Chinese history at Moscow State University and the Nanyang University of Singapore.Since the late 1970s he has been actively involved in the national media, writing on international politics for leading newspapers such as Pravda, Rossiiskaia gazeta and Nezavisimaia gazeta; he is a Member of the Board of the Foreign Policy Association.

Sergei Ivanov is not only one of Russia’s most distinguished historians of Byzantium, but also a leading popular historian and columnist. Since receiving his PhD from Moscow State University in 1984, he has produced over 170 scholarly publications, including Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond, which was published in English translation by the Oxford University Press in 2006, and Byzantine Missions, which is currently being translated into English and Czech.

Dmitry Glukhovsky is a journalist and writer. He is a former anchor for the Mayak radio station and ‘Kremlin pool’ correspondent, having also worked at EuroNews and Deutsche Welle. He has written for Russian Pioneer, L’Officiel and Playboy amongst other publications. Glukhovsky studied Journalism and Foreign Relations in Israel, lived in France and Germany, and has crossed half the globe visiting places like Chernobyl, the North Pole and the Baikonur launch pad as a roving reporter for Russia Today.

Linor Goralik was born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine in 1975 and emigrated to Israel before moving to Moscow in 2001. She has published a number of prose books including two novels written in collaboration: No was co-authored with Sergey Kuznetsov; and Half of the Sky, with Stanislav Lvovsky. Both were published in 2004. She has produced several poetry collections, with many pieces appearing in journals such as Novy Mir and Vozduh, as well as publishing two children’s stories.

Born in 1975, Alexander Garros studied literature in the University of Latvia and journalism in Moscow State University. He has worked as the editor of the cultural section in Novaya Gazeta and Ekspert. He currently lives in Moscow and works as the special reporter for the media project Snob.

One of the most fascinating authors to emerge in the turbulence of the 1990s, Maria Galina was born in Kalinin (now Tver) in 1958. She was brought up in Ukraine, studied marine biology at Odessa University. In the course of her studies, Galina became an expert in hydrobiology and worked on several expeditions examining environmental issues. Galina has lived in Moscow since 1987.

Polina Dashkova is Russia’s most successful crime author, with a total of 40 million copies of her books sold so far; in Germany alone, where she is known as the 'Queen of Russian Crime Fiction', she has sold more than 300,000 copies. A graduate of Moscow’s Maxim Gorky Literary Institute, Dashkova has been an active radio and print journalist, and has worked as an interpreter and literary translator from English. She currently lives with her husband and daughter in Moscow.

Marina Boroditskaya is a Russian poet and translator. She graduated in 1976 from the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Languages, and is well known for translating English, American and French classical poetry. She has published numerous books of children’s poetry in Russia, and translated many English-language children’s writers, including A. A. Milne, Eleanor Farjeon and Hilaire Belloc.

Pavel Basinsky was born in 1961 in Frolovo, near Volgograd. He studied at Saratov University and at the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow. A prolific journalist and author, Basinsky has excelled at a number of genres, from scholarly monographs to experimental novels. Basinsky holds a PhD in Comparative Literature, has sat on the jury of several major Russian literary prizes, such as the Russian Booker, the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Prize and the Yasnaya Polyana Prize, and is the Cultural Editor of Rossiiskaia Gazeta.

Vladimir Grigoriev is Deputy Head of the Russian Federal Agency for the Press and Mass Communications and he is a tireless campaigner and champion of Russian literature and culture at all the world's major book fairs: he has famously said, ‘Russian literature should know no boundaries.'

Lev Danilkin, columnist for the Russian magazine, Afisha, is one of Russia most engaging literary critics and independent thinkers. Danilkin graduated from Moscow State University with a B.A. and PhD in philology. He is the former editor of Russian Playboy and is the author of several books, including ‘The Parthian Arrow’ (2006), ‘Circular journeys round the intestines of a beggar’ (2007)

Slavnikova began publishing fiction in the late 1980s (her first novel appeared in 1988), during which time she was also fiction editor, then managing editor, of the important literary magazine ‘Urals'. She has lived and worked in Moscow since 2001.

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

A historian of medieval Russia by training, Vladimir Sharov (b. 1952) is the son of a geneticist who turned to writing prose, for children and adults, in the 1960s. Sharov himself began writing fiction in the late 1970s, but it was not until the 1990s that his highly unusual historiosophical novels came before the public gaze.

Dmitry Bykov was born in Moscow in 1967. He studied at Moscow State University's Faculty of Journalism, and journalism is something he remains engaged with: he regularly produces articles, essays and reviews for the leading Russian newspapers and magazines. He has senior editorial positions in various publications, hosts a weekly radio show and appears regularly on Russian TV.

Sergei Lukyanenko, born in Kazakhstan, is one of the foremost Russian science-fiction writers and has received tremendously high acclaim abroad. Originally studying as a psychiatrist, Lukyanenko turned to science-fiction writing with the monthly publication of Where the Mean Enemy Lurks in 1988. However, the works that shot him to the dizzying heights that he now occupies were Knights of the Forty Islands