ELKOST International literary agency - Round-table RUSSIAN LITERATURE ABROAD at non/fiction Book Fair

On December 3, 2011, between 15.00 and 16.00 at Author's Hall of non/fiction Book Fair in Moscow.

- Why Ludmila Ulitskaya's writings are so popular abroad?
- What's the difference between publishing of translated literature in Russia and abroad?
- Digital publishing: does Russian literature have a future anywhere except Russia?

Participants:
- Ludmila Ulitskaya, novelist
- Elena Shubina, chief editor at AST publishing group,
- Yulia Dobrovolskaya, CEO of ELKOST Intl. literary agency (handles Russian subsidiary rights in all Umberto Eco's titles, world rights in all Ludmila Ulitskaya's titles, and translation rights in titles of the leading Russian authors)
- Elena Kostioukovitch, writer, translator, literary director of ELKOST Intl. literary agency

The13th non/fiction International Fair for high-quality fiction and non-fiction will take place from 30th of November to 4th of December 2011 at the Central House of Artists in Moscow.

Chekhov's Poetics (1971), a book of literary studies by Alexander Chudakov

Rights sold: World English rights - Ardis (reverted)

Originally published in Moscow in 1971, Chekhov's Poetics remains the best single-volume study devoted to Chekhov. In fact, anyone who attempts to stage or study Chekhov seriously must consult Cudakov—and the sooner the better.

Tightly and lucidly written, this relatively slender volume constitutes a gold mine of important facts, judicious commentaries, and sober judgments about Chekhov’s oeuvre—all substantiated by prodigious citations form the writer's work. Although demonstrating an impressive mastery of Russian and Western Chekhov scholarship, and occasionally quoting Chekhov’s letters, Chudakov depends exclusively on the stories and plays themselves to advance his persuasive arguments. We have here a close reading of Chekhov, meticulous in its detail but always cognizant of the larger issues which Chekhov’s complex, often elusive writing raises. The book is divided into two parts of almost equal length and moves from structure to idea in Chekhov. Part...

Only a Miracle Could Save Us: Life and Survival under Stalin's Terror, by Irina Sherbakova (NF)

Rights sold: Germany - CAMPUS

For many years, we knew next to nothing about the private lives of ordinary Soviet citizens during Stalin’s reign. Until very recently, the social history of the Soviet Union written by Soviet and Western historians alike was limited entirely to the public sphere – politics and ideology, and the collective experience of the ‘Soviet masses’. The individual (insofar as he or she appeared at all) featured mainly as a letter-writer to the Soviet authorities (that is, as a public actor rather than a private person or member of a family).

It was only from the end of the 1980s that the practice of oral history – politically impossible in the earlier Soviet period – began to develop in Russia. Public organizations like Memorial, established in the late 1980s to represent the victims of repression and record their history, took the lead, collecting testimonies from survivors...

Round-table RUSSIAN LITERATURE ABROAD at non/fiction Book Fair - 03/12/2011

Featured titles

Chekhov's Poetics (1971), a book of literary studies by Alexander Chudakov

Only a Miracle Could Save Us: Life and Survival under Stalin's Terror, by Irina Sherbakova (NF)