The Great Translation Chart

From Vladimir Nabokov’s monstrously bloated Onegin to David Mamet’s extra-lean Cherry Orchard, we rifle through English translations of Russian lit classics and pick the best. You’re welcome.

The Great Russian-American Snow Job

BOOKS: Paul Lembresky reviews Absurdistan: "Call me picky, but I think Russian-flavored American-cooked kitsch has seen better days."

A Cup of Sorrow

"There they were again – those same red circles on the skin. I had already seen them on two other orphans within a month, at the Doctors of the World clinic in St. Petersburg. "

British novelist Tom Rob Smith plays CSI: Moscow in his new detective novel

Anathema to the Soviet government, poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky was hounded by the authorities for “parasitism,” sentenced to a stint in a remote northern village, and finally forced to leave the country in 1972. Once in the U.S., conversely, he was hounded by the adoring press, sentenced to a teaching stint in Ann Arbor, and finally forced to leave the country to pick up his Nobel Prize in 1987. Now that he’s dead, Russia, as usual, has realized its loss and wants a piece of J-Bro, too. And, soon enough, it should be getting one.

We interrupt your blog to briefly note how damn proud we are that not one but two regular Russia! contributors, Daria Vaisman and Boris Kachka, have landed major book deals... within days of each other. Let’s dive under the jump and meet them properly.