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London Book Fair
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section sponsored by rossiyskaya gazeta, russia Distributed with THE daily telegraph saturday_MARCH 31_2012
The writers’ factory: young authors in Russia rbth.ru/14946
russian literature
writers with a conscience The London Book Fair from april 16-18 will have a special focus on contemporary Russian literature. Here, we look at the lives and work of two of Russia’s best-selling authors, who are also well-known for their political commitment
A childhood fascination with an attempted coup in Japan put Grigory Chkhartishvili, aka Boris Akunin, on an extraordinary career path.
realised that he didn’t want to continue to work as a translator. “I wanted to find an occupation that better corresponded to my inner self,”he told Russky Reporter magazine. And in 1998, the translator became an astonishingly popular fiction writer. He began writing historical novels under the pen name B Akunin. Readers later dubbed him “Boris”. He attributes his success to a format that appears in
Konstantin milchin special to rn
In 1970, a geography teacher in a Moscow school gave an assignment to his students: they had to collect newspaper clippings about specific countries. Some of the students got Tunisia, Ecuador and Japan. Soviet newspapers regularly wrote about the first two, mostly about the heroic struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation, but they wrote virtually nothing about Japan. But one day the student read that a Japanese writer had attempted a coup, which sparked an interest in Grigory Chkhartishvili and helped shape his journey. Since then, Chkhartishvili has been through several metamorphoses. He studied languages at Moscow State University in the Institute of Asian and African Countries and worked as a translator from Japanese and English. His most famous translations were of the work of Yukio Mishima, whose failed coup had such an impact on him. In the Eighties and Nineties, Russia saw a surge of interest in Japan, largely thanks to Chkhartishvili and other Japanese studies experts. However, Chkhartishvili later
Chkhartisvili began writing novels under the name B Akunin. Readers later dubbed him ‘Boris’ all his work. There is a charismatic protagonist, a serial narrative and a literary game with the reader. Chkhartishvili’s protagonist is Erast Petrovich Fandorin, a Russian Sherlock Holmes with German roots, an intellectual and athlete who is infinitely noble and honest. Chkhartishvili has written 14 books about Fandorin, whose character develops throughout the series: it is filled with literary games and allusions and the overall experience is multilayered. On one level, readers c a n s i m p ly e n j oy t h e adventure but some will try to identify the classic Russian novels from which
Chkhartishvili has borrowed particular episodes. There are spin-offs to the Fandorin books, including a series about Fandorin’s ancestors and descendants. There is also the separate Sister Pelagia series, about a nun who is a detective. As the author previously moved on from translating, he now wants to move on from writing novels. Since late last year, Chkhartishvili has been writing a LiveJournal blog in which he focuses on historical topics. Like most Russians, before December 2011 Chkhartishvili could not imagine becoming involved in politics. But then came the parliamentary elections, followed by the rallies in December. Chkhartishvili turned from a writer and blogger into a public political figure almost overnight. The story of Chkhartishvili’s involvement in the protest movement is the stuff of legend. The writer was in his house in St Malo, France, writing a new book as events unfolded in Russia. He got in his car and drove 250 miles to Paris, took a flight to Moscow and found himself at the Bolotnaya Square rally, where more than 50,000 people listened to him with enthusiasm. Many thought Chkhartishvili delivered the best speech of the day. “I never thought I would speak at a rally. It’s hard to
eastnews
Translator learns the language of protest
Words and action: Grigory Chkhartishvili surprised himself by becoming a political figure
I never thought I would speak at a rally. It’s hard to imagine anything more alien imagine anything more alien to my whole temperament,” he wrote in his blog after his Bolotnaya appearance. During the presidential election of March 4, the writer and other public figures organised the Voters’ League to act as a watchdog for polling procedures. Throughout election day, representatives of the League witnessed and recorded irregularities that took place at polling stations in Moscow. Chkhartishvili and members of the Voters’ League have subsequently refused to recognise the results of the presidential elections and are continuing to fight to have them annulled.
Book review
Dickensian visions and the villain exposed title : He Lover of Death, The Diamond Chariot Author : boris akunin publisher : orion books
The tsar-era thrillers about Erast Fandorin have been a hit since 1998, when the first book was introduced. English translations of the last two in the series, He Lover of Death and The Diamond Chariot, were released at the end of 2011. The “he lover” in question could be any number of characters – from a bandit prince to a rags-toriches underdog/hero. The adventures of the hero Senka in the 19th-century
slums of Khitrovka remind readers of Oliver Twist and Treasure Island. But this gruesome tale, a familiar mixture of action and intrigue, has a distinctly moral
undertone. The protagonists discover criminal gangs and murders, but also come to understand the world better. Disguised as Jews, they encounter anti-Semitism;
dressed as a girl, Senka learns about sexual harassment. Set during the Russo-Japanese war, The Diamond Chariot involves bombs, spies and murder on the Trans-Siberian Express. Each chapter ends with a haiku, which must have been a challenge for translator Andrew Bromfield. Akunin elegantly combines the Russian spirit with Japanese exoticism. The narrative is writhing with concubines, opium addicts, gambling dens and haunted Shinto shrines. Many mysteries are laid bare, among them the secret of the author’s pen-name. Akunin, readers learn, is the Japanese word for “villain”.
On the front line: a modern Tolstoy
Read Russia! at the London Book Fair
Zakhar Prilepin’s work draws on his experience as a police officer. He fights for social change through his writing and political campaigning.
Contemporary Russian literature is celebrated with Read Russia! as part of the London Book Fair April 16-20, at venues across London.
PROFILE
Zakhar Prilepin NAtIONALITY: russian
anna nemtsova special to rn
AGE: 36 studied: languages
Born in 1975, he was drafted into the Russian army in 1994. His work as an Omon (special police) officer from 1996 to 1999 provided rich material for his writing. After graduating from college in 1999, Prilepin moved to Nizhny Novgorod, where he has worked as a journalist and a novelist for the past decade.
eastnews
Zakhar Prilepin has experienced a meteoric rise, both as a literary phenomenon and as a political activist. At 36, he is one of Russia’s most acclaimed authors, and his novel Sin was voted one of the most important books to come out of Russia in the past decade. Prilepin’s new work, Vosmerka or “Eight”, is the most anticipated Russian book of 2012. Prilepin says the story shows how friendships fall apart for no good reason. A film of the book is already being filmed by the director Alexei Uchitel. It is hard to imagine that 10 years ago Zakhar Prilepin, thenYevgeny Prilepin, veteran of two wars in Chechnya, was a poorly paid officer with the special police unit Omon. His salary of 830 roubles (now about £18) a week could not cover the expenses of his first baby. To help keep food on the table, Prilepin took shifts where he checked
trucks coming from the Northern Caucasus. “The drivers never had proper transit documents,” he says. “I let them pass and they gave me bananas, apples and sometimes 50-rouble bills – I was not ashamed.”
From officer to writer
The daily pressure to find money and food for his growing family eventually pushed him to reinvent himself. In 1999, when Prilepin
graduated from university, one of his college friends suggested he apply for a job at the newspaper Delo. He did and quickly rose to become the chief editor. At the same time he wrote his debut novel, Pathologies, which was awarded the National Bestseller prize. Pathologies portraysYegor, an immature and frightened Omon commander in Chechnya. “War does not make people any different, but it
exaggerates the traits the person already has,”Prilepin explains.“If you like people, you are a humanist; if you have maniacal thoughts, you are a total maniac.” He adds that, while his books are not autobiographical, he relates to his protagonists: Sankya, a National Bolshevik revolution leader in Sankya; and Zakhar, a bar bouncer in Sin. Today, Prilepin is the editor of the Nizhny Novgorod bureau of Russia’s investigative newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. He lives with his wife, Masha, and their four children in a remote village on the Kerzhenets river with two dogs and three cats. “If only they paid us well in Omon, I would still be a police officer today,” he says. Critics have compared Prilepin to Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s great-grandneice Tatyana Tolstaya, author of Pushkin’s Children and Sleepwalker in a Fog, says Prilepin “is the biggest event in today’s Russian literature; his language reminds us of Tolstoy”. Prilepin acknowledges that Tolstoy is his idol:“Of course I am a typical follower. If only I could feel safe about the
future of my family in Russia, I would have 12 children and never leave my village,” he says.
Arrested 150 times
Last month, Prilepin, a prominent figure in the National Bolshevik movement, stood with opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on Nizhny Novgorod’s Freedom Square. “I have been arrested more than 150 times... my photograph is number one on the list for detentions of radical opposition activists. Now Omon grab me, beat me in my stomach, drag me with my face on the ground.” “What I love about [Prilepin] is that he never leaves the front line,” says fellow war veteran Arkady Babchenko, the author of One Soldier’s War. “He is an active participant expressing his social and political protest both in his books, and physically on the streets.” The acclaimed poet and novelist Dmitry Bykov says that for the past decade, Russian had suffered from a lack of writers who were involved in the process of social change. “And then Prilepin’s books appeared.”
Events
yOUNG WOMEN’S WRITING FROM RUSSIA Monday April 16, 10am, Wellington Room, Earls Court 1
Olga Slavnikova, an internationally renowned author and winner of the Russian Booker, and four female winners of the acclaimed Debut Prize (Yaroslava Pulinovich, Irina Bogatereva, Anna Lavrinenko and Anna Leonidova) will present a new female voice from diverse areas of Russia, inviting a discussion on present day attitudes. ›› ›www.academia-rossica.org
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The Read Russia! 2012 programme is sponsored by the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication and Media under the direction of Vladimir Grigoriev. It will feature translation grants for the publication of contemporary and classic Russian literature in English, author tours for leading Russian writers and their publishers, a major exhibition on children’s book art, a travelling film series and a new documentary project about Russian literature. › www.academia-rossica.org
RUSSIAN LITERATURE FACE-TO-FACE Tuesday April 17, 11am–4pm, The Read Russia! stand (Y255) at earls court 2
Boris Akunin will present the new screen adaptation of his book The Spy Thriller, for which he wrote the script. Set in Moscow in the run up to the outbreak of war in 1941, the film chronicles the intrigues between the elusive spies of the Soviet Union and Germany.
Four of Russia’s best writers – Boris Akunin (featured above), Alexander Kabakov, Zakhar Prilepin (featured left) and Olga Slavnikova – will be visiting the Read Russia! stand to discuss their work and meet publishers, journalists and readers.
›› www.apollocinemas.com
› www.academia-rossica.org
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tHE POWER OF MYSTERIES AND THE MYSTERIES OF POWER Tuesday, April 17, 7pm, Waterstones, Piccadilly
Join bestselling author-turnedactivist Boris Akunin when he discusses his career, his writing and his interests. Book signings will be available. ›www.waterstones.com
NASHI/NE-NASHI: BEING YOUNG IN RUSSIA Wednesday, April 18, 7pm, Waterstones, Piccadilly
Rising star of Russian literature Zakhar Prilepin discusses the role of young people in politics with documentary maker James Jones. › www.waterstones.com
FROM CLASSIC TO CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA Wednesday April 18, 12pm, The Read Russia! stand (Y255) at earls court 2
A discussion on translation as both an art and a trade, and its future prospects, particularly in light of the establishment of the Institute of Translation in Moscow. › www.academia-rossica.org
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