The Bureaucrat Who Would be King

President, prime minister, or unnamed Tsar, Vladimir Putin is at once ubiquitous and unknowable; a new book examines the many facets of a new species of autocrat.

Sorokin’s Tyrannical Chosen

Vladimir Sorokin’s gruesome (and frequently censored) satires puncture Russia’s surprising nostalgia for the glory days of Stalin and Khrushchev; Amelia Glaser reviews two newly released works.

Art Beneath the Floorboards

Dostoevsky’s moody, brilliant “Notes from the Underground” was recently given an edgy, provocative theater treatment. Can Russia’s most unfilmable writer be acted on the stage?

Gary Shteyngart, Old Man

Who is Gary Shteyngart to call thirty-somethings old? Perhaps a thirty-something himself, bringing forth his most mature novel to date.

When the Whole Story Isn’t Enough

When Peter Stein adapted Dostoevsky’s The Demons for the stage, he found himself unable to cut a single scene of its 800 pages. The result: a marathon 12-hour production.

The Creation, and Erasure, of Laura

Dmitri Nabokov published The Original of Laura in the form in which his father had left it: in note-cards, which you can remove, rearrange, annotate, even add to…

2 poems by Peretz Markish

2 poems by Peretz Markish
translated by Amelia Glaser

— — —

Hey, what do you deal in – sorrow?
What are you selling there – despair?
I’m a buyer and a dealer,
and I’m dealing and I’m wheeling
days and nights, …

Something Better than a Moral

By showing his readers the unimaginable, Etgar Keret returns us with relief and sobriety to a world we thought we knew. Amelia Glaser interrelates Wristcutters, Jellyfish, and The Girl on the Fridge, illuminating the works of this strange Israeli export.

An Earnest Proposal to Dmitri Nabokov

After years of indecision, Dmitri Nabokov has at last decided to publish The Original of Laura, the incomplete novel his father asked that he burned. But before the damage is done, Amelia Glaser humbly offers a plan that would satisfy the ravenous legion of Nabokov lovers while simultaneously honoring Vladimir’s request.