The New Russian Realism (R2): Return to the Great Russian Novel May 24, 2012

LITERARY READINGS and an OPEN PUBLIC DISCUSSION on art and Russia today.
***For the general English-speaking public. *** This event is FREE.***

The New Realism is a key phrase in Russia's contemporary literary scene. It signifies the sudden shift away from the edgy, conceptual and avant-garde post-Soviet-period experimental literature. A shift to direct narrative prose in which young writers interpret and frame the emerging reality of their radically new Russia.

The origins and causes of the New Realism, along with its meaning, have yet to be determined. In the meantime, R2 continues to evolve, the realism even gaining a unexpected touch of magic...

Come meet three writers - and one key critic - in the vanguard of this literary new wave. Featuring:

Alexander Snegirev A native of Moscow, Snegirev is a political scientist by education but currently works in construction design. Snegirev won the Debut Prize in 2005 for a collection of short stories entitled Russian Rhymes. His short novel How We Bombed America won the Writers' Union Crown Prize in 2007. In 2009, his novel Petroleum Venus was shortlisted for the National Bestseller Prize and nominated for the Russian Booker (it was also on the bestseller list on Ozon.ru, Russia's answer to Amazon.com). His latest novel is called Vanity.

Irina Bogatyreva The author of four novels and numerous stories and articles, Irina is a graduate of the prestigious Literary Institute in Moscow. She has been honored by numerous literary awards. Bogatyreva writes on the most important issues for Russia's younger generation, including the freedoms offered by Russia's vibrant youth hitchhiking subculture, cults and the esoteric spirituality they appear to teach, and the magical appeal of Siberian unspoiled wilderness and the ancient civilizations that lived there. In every case, Bogatyreva is motivated by the search for inner freedom. In her books, she confronts contemporary realities, investigating her generation's search for identity, collectively and individually, for freedom and independence, for meaning in a Russia entirely unlike the country of their parents and grandparents.

Igor Savelyev Born in 1983 into a family of writers in Ufa in the southern Urals, he still lives in his native city, working as a crime reporter for the local news agency. In 2004, his short novel Pale City became a cult classic for Russia's youth culture. Based on first-hand experience, the novel is an inside view of the new generation's yearning for independence, freedom and meaning. Critics have raved about Savelyev’s “masterful, finely chiseled style based on brilliant counterpoints, like a virtuoso music piece.” In his works, “realism is bordering on phantasmagoria, a striking sample of new-generation psychological prose.”

Savelyev received his degree in philology from Ufa University and is currently working on his dissertation on the topic of contemporary Russian literary criticism.

With them will be critic Valeria Pustovaya, who established the term the New Realism in a landmark article. Pustovaya was born in 1982 in Moscow and is a graduate of Moscow University's Journalism School. She heads the criticism department of one of the most important literary journals in Russia, one of the country's great old literary journals, October. Among her teachers she names the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev and philosopher-historian Ostwald Spengler. Her articles have appeared in countless periodicals. It was for her critical essays that she won the Debut Prize – specifically, she won it for the article in which she entered the term The New Realism into the current literary debate. She has also won the Gorky prize, the October Journal prize, the Novy Mir prize, and the New Pushkin Prize. She was one of the young writers who met with Putin in February of 2007. She is one of the members of the young critics' group PoPuGan.

THE NEW RUSSIAN REALISM will be moderated by Liesl Schillinger, a culture writer and translator (from French, German and Italian) based in New York. Raised in Midwestern college towns, Ms. Schillinger studied comparative literature at Yale and worked for a brief stint in Moscow as an editor at Moscow Magazine and columnist for The New Republic. Returning to Manhattan, she spent many years writing for The New Yorker. She is a regular critic for The New York Times Book Review and writes for numerous other publications. Her translation of the novel Every Day, Every Hour, by Natasa Dragnic, is coming out in May in the Viking Press.

This event is brought to you by CAUSA ARTIUM, a NYC-based arts non-profit, in cooperation with the Debut Prize Foundation.

For over a decade, the Debut Prize has sought out young Russian-speaking literary talent the world over. Receiving as many as 70,000 submissions annually, Debut is a vast competition, one of Russia's elite literary honors and a landmark in the literary calendar, the brainchild of Andrei Skoch, a noted philanthropist, businessman and member of the Russian parliament.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT CAUSA ARTIUM AT:

[email protected]
1 (212) 203-0461

And please join us for this event on Facebook!
(https://www.facebook.com/events/296522693769491/)

Official Website: http://www.debutprize.com/ai1ec_event/the-new-russian-realism-return-to-the-great-russian-novel/?instance_id=133