Author Archives: mbs

“Luminous”

Phoebe Taplin has given Olga Slavnikova’s 2017 (now published in the UK as well, by Duckworth) a wonderful review in the January 5, 2012, “Russia Now” supplement to the London Telegraph, calling it “an ambitious, postmodern contribution to a revered literary tradition” and the translation “luminous.”  Read the rest here.

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High Praise for Andrei Gelasimov’s “Thirst”!

Fr. Grant Barber has written an insightful review for the Three Percent blog of my translation of Andrei Gelasimov’s short novel Thirst (published by AmazonCrossing): Gelasimov embraces the “show, don’t tell” dictum effectively throughout this short novel from the unique start. The first person narrator, later identified as Constantine or Kostya, has just returned to [...]

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Andrei Gelasimov’s “The Lying Year”

In 2012, AmazonCrossing will be publishing my second translation of a novel by Andrei Gelasimov, “The Lying Year,” a story told from two points of view—Mikhail, whose boss has asked him to spy on his son Sergei, and Sergei, the son.  In this turbulent parody, lying is the default mode. 

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St. Petersburg Noir

Akashic Books is publishing another one of its great anthologies of noir stories from Russia, this time for St. Petersburg.  I’ll have translations in it of stories by Lena Eltang, Andrei Rubanov, Mikhail Kudriavtsev, and Anna Solovey. 

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2017 Translation Wins 2011 Heldt Prize

The Association of Women in Slavic Studies has awarded me the prize for 2011 Best Translation in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian Women’s Studies for my translation of Olga Slavnikova, 2017 (Overlook/Duckworth, 2010). The prize will be celebrated at the AWSS annual meeting and luncheon convention at the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies convention in [...]

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Europa Challenge Blog: 12 Who Don’t Agree

A review of a book I translated recently.  I agree: if you’re interested in current Russian politics, this will tell you stories you haven’t heard elsewhere and give you a much fuller picture of opposition politics.

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