• Marian Schwartz is a prize-winning translator of Russian fiction, history, biography, criticism, and fine art. She is the principal English translator of the works of Nina Berberova and translated the New York Times bestseller The Last Tsar, by Edvard Radzinsky, as well as classics by Mikhail Bulgakov, Ivan Goncharov, Yuri Olesha, and Mikhail Lermontov. Her most recent book translations are Andrei Gelasimov's Thirst (AmazonCrossing), Valery Panyushkin's Twelve Who Don't Agree (Europa Editions), and Olga Slavnikova's 2017 (Overlook Press). Her translations of Mikhail Bulgakov's White Guard and Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov are now out in paperback from Yale University Press. She is the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowships and is a past president of the American Literary Translators Association.

An Evening with Olga Slavnikova and Marian Schwartz

On Wednesday, May 25, at 6:30p, Olga Slavnikova and I will be giving a reading at the Jerry Orbach Theater in New York.  Last year her novel, 2017, which won the Russian Booker Prize, was published in English in my translation by Overlook Press.  Save the date! Jerry Orbach Theater, 1627 Broadway Third Floor (entrance on the south side of West 50th).

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Mikhail Shishkin’s Maidenhair

Venerin Volos cover Mikhail Shishkins MaidenhairShishkin has won both the National Big Book Prize (2006) and National Bestseller Prize (2005) for Maidenhair, which I am now translating for Open Letter, with publication slated for 2012. The book has also won prizes in France, Italy, and China. My favorite review of the original Russian text comes from Yana Sokolova, “Chitalny zal”: “An unusual novel. Probably, genius.”

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Oblomov “Sparkles with Contemporary Lyricism and Humor”

Karen Vanuska has published a very flattering review of my Oblomov translation in Russia, Past and Present—and even mentioned my White Guard translation to boot. This is a reviewer who understands my aspirations:

Here is why Schwartz makes such a fine translator: she brings the essence of the Russian text into English, letting us understand the narrative in its Russian context without drowning us in footnotes.

Once again, I am grateful to Seven Stories Press for taking a chance on this major undertaking and to Yale University Press for bringing it out in paperback.

Read the full text here.

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Cosmopolitan Lawyer Picks Oblomov

Cosmopolitan Lawyer has chosen my translation of Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov as one of its fiction picks! S/he quotes one of the great lines from Mikhail Shishkin’s afterword: “Forced to choose between an unworthy life and sleeping, Oblomov chooses sleep. Suicide by sofa.”

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Lobster & Canary Likes 2017 for 2010

Daniel A. Rabuzzi writes Lobster & Canary, a blog about speculative, fantastical and surreal fiction, poetry, and visual arts, fairy tales, oral epic, and children’s literature.  He’s included Olga Slavnikova’s 2017 among his favorite novels read in 2010:

Olga Slavnikova, 2017 (Overlook, 2010, trans. from Russian by Marian Schwartz). The "most difficult-to-classify book of the year." Enjoyed without grasping its entirety, which was part of the enjoyment. Michael Froggatt, in his review (Strange Horizons, October 1, 2010), gets it precisely right: "Olga Slavnikova’s 2017, the winner of the 2006 Russian Booker Prize, is a novel which confounds the reader at every turn: its prose style, characterization and narrative consistently refuse to conform to expectations. It stubbornly refuses to depict people or events in a way which recognizably reflects real life…"

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Catch Me Live

I’m excited about two speaking dates I have coming up later this month.

On Monday, October 26th, I’ll be giving a Russian Science Fiction Reading at Swarthmore College, reading from my translation of Olga Slavnikova’s 2017. For time and location, click here.

Later that same week, on Thursday, October 28th, I’ll be giving the 12th Annual Marilyn Gaddis Rose Lecture at the annual conference of the American Translators Association.  The Literary Division has asked me to speak about “The Literary Translator and U.S. Publishing”—a subject dear to my heart.  The conference is being held at the Hyatt Regency in Denver. For time and location, click here.

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