The first Russian stand at BookExpo America New York, 25 - 27 May 2010 This year the BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand took part in BookExpo America, the main fair in the American book industry. The stand was organised by the Russian Federal agency for Press and Mass Communications and represented a range of Russian publishers. BookExpo America is currently undergoing major changes, transforming itself from a fair which focused primarily on the domestic market into an international book forum.

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.

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.

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.

He-Lover of Death Boris Akunin. W&N Moscow, the early 20th century. Senka the thief falls for a mysterious beauty nicknamed Death, whose previous lovers all died in suspicious circumstances. Senka witnesses horrific events but is saved by Erast Fandorin, a detective who is Russia’s answer to Sherlock Holmes. Boris Akunin is the pen name of the philologist and Japanese- Russian translator Grigory Chkhartishvili (born 1956), whose postmodernist detective novels have become bestsellers and movies. His works are set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period well known to aficionados of Russian literature as the heyday of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. Akunin marshals his material with great elegance, and his novels are studded with hidden pearls from classical literature.

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)

German Sadulaev was born in 1973, in the town of Shali, in the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, to a Chechen father and Terek Cossack mother. In 1989, aged sixteen, he left Chechnya to study law at Leningrad State University. Today he lives and works as a lawyer in St Petersburg. German Sadulaev’s first book, Radio FUCK, told the urban tales of thirty-somethings in St Petersburg. It made no mention of Chechnya.

Alexander Ilichevsky was born in Sumgait, Azerbaijan in 1970 and graduated in theoretical physics from a technological institute affiliated to Moscow University. He is the author of many literary works in various genres, both poetry and prose, all of which have been published in Russia’s most prestigious literary journals, such as Novy mir (New World), Oktiabr (October) – and all to great literary acclaim.

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.

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

To mark the centenary of Leo Tolstoy’s death, Academia Rossica with support from the "Russkiy Mir" Foundation (Moscow) and the Russian Embassy in London presents a programme of film adaptations of the writer’s greatest works and a documentary film about Tolstoy and his family based on the archival footage made in 1908-1910.

6 October – 21 November, Calvert22
Drawing upon his background in nautical engineering and an early career as a submariner, Ponomarev uses journeys on the sea as a starting point to explore the relationship between illusion and ‘reality’, the utility of art, and the shifting tides of personal and cultural history. The works in this exhibition issue from journeys undertaken by the artist - to the North Pole, to the bottom of the ocean and while tracking the 60th latitude of the Atlantic onboard a scientific research ship.

29 October - 7 November, Apollo Piccadilly
The 4th Russian Film starts this Friday, 29 October, featuring the best in new Russian film, documentaries and animation and opens with The Ugly Duckling, master animator Garry Bardin's sparky and affecting stop-motion animation with Orwellian overtones. All films are shown in Russian with English subtitles.

6.30pm, Thursday 25 November, Hendon Library
Literary publisher, translator, poet and novelist Alessandro Gallenzi will be discussing the challenges of translating modern Russian fiction. He will also address why there is a need for new translations of Russian classics, and talk about publishing Tolstoy’s works and most recently The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, 100 years after the death of Tolstoy.

Diaghilev fever is taking London by storm. The V&A's major exhibition 'Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929' reveals Diaghilev's enduring influence on 20th-century art, design and fashion. The V&A is also holding a number of other Diaghilev themed events, including 'The Music of Diaghilev with the Philharmonia Orchestra' and 'Rephrasing the Ballets Russes', in collaboration with the English National Ballet. And the perfect accompaniment to this year's season of Diaghilev events is Sjeng Scheijen's new biography of the arguably the greatest (and most controversial) impresario of all time.

The Russkiy Mir Foundation in collaboration with Academia Rossica is launching a programme of grants for literary translation from Russian into English. This programme aims to promote Russian literature internationally and facilitate cultural and intellectual links between Russia and the English-speaking world. We invite publishers and translators to apply for funding to translate works from Russian into English. We are particularly keen to support projects that aim to bring original literary projects and works by contemporary Russian writers to a wider English audience. On the whole, priority is given to translation of contemporary fiction and poetry; literary non-fiction titles and new translations of classics may also be eligible if they are exceptional in terms of literary value. The scheme supports only translations from the original Russian text.

4th Russian Film Festival, 29 October – 7 November Dear Friends! The Russian Film Festival is getting ready to present London with this year's best premieres in Russian cinema. The Main Programme As always, the main festival programme showcases the best Russian films, award-winners at major international and Russian film festivals. These films include, 'Silent Souls' (Ovsyanki), directed by Alexei Fedorchenko and winner of three prizes at the Venice Film Festival, 'How I Ended This Summer' by Alexei Popogrebsky, awarded prizes for best actor and best cinematography at the Berlinale, 'One War' by Vera Glagoleva, Grand Prix winner at Sofia International Film Festival and Russia's nomination for the Oscars and Svetlana Proscurina's latest film 'The Truce', winner of the main prize at Kinotavr. As in previous years, guests include directors, producers and actors who come to London specially to present their films at the festival. Documentaries – 'Noughties Art' This year's documentary programme sums up the last decade with screenings of the ten best Russian documentary films, one for each year. The programme is presented by the great director and documentary maker, Vitaly Mansky, president of the ArtDocFest. Animation Alongside the main programme and documentaries, we have also put together a comprehensive and diverse programme of animation. As part of our festival 'Astral dogs Belka and Strelka' take a trip to outer space captained by director Inna Evlannikova, while Irina Evteeva, famous for her graceful and original style, brings 'Little Tragedies' to the screen. These films will capture the hearts of adults and childen alike. As well as an extensive programme of full length animation, we will be screening a special programme for our young audiences, presenting the best of award-winning Russian animated films of recent years Special Screenings This year's film festival also includes a retrospective of the great actor and director Sergei Bondarchuk's films and the works of Leo Tolstoy on film, as well as a retrospective of masters of Soviet and Russian animation. Venue For the fourth year in a row the Russian Film Festival will take place at the Apollo Piccadilly, one of London's best cinemas.

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN RUSSIAN TO ENGLISH LITERARY TRANSLATION We are delighted to announce that entries for the Rossica Translation Prize 2011 are now open. The Rossica Prize is the only prize awarded for the best new translation of a high-quality Russian literary work into English. Literary work must be written in Russian by any author, present or past, and published in English in 2009 and 2010. The prize is open to works published in any country. The value of the prize is £5,000 divided between the winning translator and the publisher.

Saturday 19 June, 7.30pm & 10.30pm, PizzaExpress Jazz Club
A long established leading figure in Russian jazz and an internationally acclaimed pianist, Daniel Kramer will visit London to perform two live concerts exclusively for the audience of the PizzaExpress Jazz Club. The innovator of Russia's jazz scene and artistic director of no less than four jazz festivals, he lectures at Moscow State Conservatory and Central Music School while also being the Chairman of the Jazz

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, which won best heroic-romantic fantasy and science-fiction award in 1995, and The Nuclear Dream.

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.

The Debut Prize was instituted in 2000 by State Duma Deputy Andrei Skoch, creator of the humanitarian foundation Pokolenie (Generation). Skoch originally conceived of Pokolenie as a medical charity to help provincial Russian clinics, sick children and pensioners. The Debut, Pokolenie’s only cultural project to date, has become a prize of national renown. The Debut has a strict age limit: entrants may not be over the age of 25. Members of the Russian literary establishment were skeptical at first. They doubted that writers so young would have something to say to readers. Young writers might try their hand at poetry, they argued, but they didn’t have enough life experience to write a story or a novel. However, the Debut has shown that a person’s life experience at any age is complete in and of itself. What a person knows about the world at 20 has been forgotten by the time he is 30. What he could have written at 20 he will no longer write at 30. He will write something else. Strangely enough, most writers live without their first book: it remains in their minds, in drafts. The Debut inspires young Russian writers to complete that first book. The Debut prompts them to commit to literature their unique experience, what might be described as the shock of their first encounter with grown-up life. Not just their new existential status, but daily events. Suddenly a person is faced with bank applications, having to pay rent and buy insurance; no one will fill out the forms for him, no one will answer for him. And he suddenly feels horribly alone in the world. This sort of loneliness, like any other, has a huge creative potential. The Debut brings in the first literary harvest of the writing generation — and it does so every year. 2010 marks the first year of Debut’s international program. Funded by Pokolenie, the program aims to present the works of Debut finalists and winners to the foreign reader. Collections of these works will be translated and their authors will be sent to international book fairs and festivals. This year’s collection appears in English and Chinese. Future collections will be brought out in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and so on. Since the number of Debut finalists and winners is only increasing, as is their level and mastery, publication of their works in English will continue.

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

In order to prepare Russia’s participation as Market Focus Country two steering committees have been set up - in London and in Moscow. The first London steering committee was held at the Russian Embassy in London on 9 November 2009. It was chaired by Mr Alistair Burtenshaw, Director of The London Book Fair.

21 July, 19.30
Wigmore Hall
£10-£22
Denitsa Laffchieva on clarinet, Alexander Zemtsov on viola, Alexander Chaushian on cello and Ashley Wass on piano perform works by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms in this wonderful concert hall.

19-21 June
London Review Bookshop
One of our aims has been to place the translator centre stage (the programme features works translated from Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, French and Russian) and we are fortunate that this year’s winning translator of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, Anne McLean, is taking part in the panel discussion with three other eminent translators: her English language edition of Evelio Rosero’s The Armies was launched at the bookshop last October.

Red Pyramid
Russian Literature from the 21st Century
In this literary edition of ROSSICA, we are delighted to present the first English translations of new works by nine leading Russian writers. ROSSICA 19 introduces their work through extracts from six novels, recently published in Russia, and three short stories especially written for this anthology.

26 May
Moscow
On the 26th of May, the names of the writers shortlisted for the 'Big Book' literary prize were announced. 13 authors have been shortlisted. Two of the shortlisted books were entered into the competition as manuscripts: Mariam Petrosyan's 'The House Where'and Andrei Baldin's 'The Extension of the Full Stop'.

When Academia Rossica approached me to serve on the jury for their translation prize, I was excited and intrigued. What would the field be like, how many entries would there be, were there still publishers around in the West willing to produce translations of serious Russian works? The classics apart, was there more to Russian literature for English-speaking people than penguins and historical detectives? My caricature of the average Western reader's view of Russian literature today can perhaps be excused in part by my own education.

I was delighted and astonished when I received the invitation to be one of the judges of this year’s ‘Rossica’ Translation Prize. Delighted – because, by accepting, I would be able to indulge myself with a clear conscience in reading (or, as it often turned out, rereading) many works of Russian literature rather than doing what I all too often do – reading works about Russian literature (and various other things). Astonished – because I am not a prolific or high-profile translator of Russian literature, so I was unsure about why I had been chosen. However, not being known for false modesty, I did feel that I was reasonably well qualified for the work ahead.

Orel Art
Until 1 July 2009
UK solo exhibition of Russian contemporary artist Andrei Molodkin. An ex-Soviet soldier and master draftsman, Molodkin started using a simple ballpoint pen – the only medium available to him when serving in the Russian military – to create his first canvases. Referencing tattooing, once illegal in USSR, and exhausting an army of pens, Molodkin’s gigantic, labour-intensive drawings were first in a series of works to critically address iconization in a global contemporary culture.

Calvert 22
13 May - 16 June 2009
Calvert 22 presents its inaugural exhibition, curated by David Thorpe. The show will bring together five leading contemporary Russian artists: Alexander Brodsky, Pavel Pepperstein, Haim Sokol, Leonid Tishkov and Stanislav Volyazlovsky. Although the artists vary greatly in terms of the chosen media of their practice, they connect via their common desire to excavate the past, to explore both collective and personal mythologies, and through the realisation of their imaginings of the future. The majority of the works in Past Future Perfect will be on show in the UK for the first time.

Sasha Dugdale was born in Sussex. Between 1995 and 2000 she lived and worked in Russia. In 1999 she initiated the Russian theatre New Writing project with the Royal Court, London, and currently works as a translator and consultant at the Royal Court. Four of her translations have been staged. Plasticine by Vassily Sigarev won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. She has had poems published in Oxford Poets 2002 and New Writing 12 (Picador 2003). In 2003 she received an Eric Gregory Award.

Mario has published numerous poetry books and pamphlets, including: Shrapnel and Sheets, Bosco, Heavy Water, Half Life, Fearnought (poems for Southwell Workhouse), along with translations of Catullus, Sappho and Montale. Lepidoptera is a hybrid book of long poetry and short prose, while his illustrated collection The Stamina of Sheep (the unique result of an innovative public and educational arts project for Havering, the Thames and Essex) captured the Essex Book Award for Best Fiction Publication (2000-2002). Flowers of Sulphur was published in 2007. Mario is currently working on two further collections, Monte Cassino and i tulips.