Gérard Depard-who? Indiegogo campaign hopes to bring French actor’s memoir to English readers
It’s a well-known fact that only three percent of books written outside of the English language end up translated and on US bookshelves. Of that three percent, just a small margin… Read more »
The horseradish on the hamburger: Of Trump, Putin, the press, and the urgent legacy of Anna Politkovskaya
Last week, as the G20 met in Hamburg (please use this space to imagine your own flavorful beef joke) amid raging protests, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin got to… Read more »
In Russia, a poet declares his candidacy
Kirill Medvedev is one of Russia’s best-known young writers and political activists. He’s a fan and translator of Charles Bukowski, and a leftist who carried political pollen from Occupy Wall Street to… Read more »
Russian blogger receives suspended sentence for playing Pokémon Go in church
For some reason, the Russian activist and blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky’s arrest and detention in October for filming himself playing Pokémon Go in a church in Yekaterinburg didn’t seem to attract quite the same… Read more »
Another prominent Russian journalist dies after brutal attack
A Russian journalist who had long been critical Vladimir Putin’s government died on Wednesday of injuries he sustained from a severe beating by unknown attackers six weeks ago. CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark reports… Read more »
Amazon and Russia and adult coloring books, oh my!
So here’s a weird one. As Danuta Kean reports for the Guardian, academic Timothy Snyder, who wrote the post-Trump smash On Tyranny, and The Bodley Head, his UK publisher (and an… Read more »
Let’s talk about Russia, baby
Back in Novemeber, we reported on Russia’s imprisonment and prosecution of Natalia Sharina, the fifty-nine-year-old director of Moscow’s Library of Ukrainian Literature, on charges of embezzlement and distributing literature with “extremist content.”… Read more »
The case of Svetlana Alexievich’s Russian PEN membership
Five days after Nobel Prize-winning writer Svetlana Alexievich announced her resignation from the Russian PEN Center over its expulsion of journalist and activist Sergey Parkhomenko, the organization released a statement denying… Read more »
Russia shuts down European University at St. Petersburg amid highly suspect bureaucratic hoodoo
The European University at St. Petersburg, located in the Russian city whose name it bears, has been ordered to cease classroom instruction, and may face closure or further reprisals, according to reporting from… Read more »
Director of Moscow’s Library of Ukrainian Literature on trial for distributing literature “with extremist content”
Natalia Sharina, the fifty-nine-year-old director of Moscow’s Library of Ukrainian Literature, is currently facing trial for embezzlement and the dissemination of literature with “extremist content,” charges on which she was… Read more »