CATEGORIES

A New Chapter

The board is very pleased that Melissa accepted our invitation to lead the organization forward.a

Books Offer Lifeline in Incarceration

In the first letter Danny Harris wrote to Gary Fine from solitary confinement, he made what seemed to Fine like a simple request.

Button Chair

The magic of sitting down to play

Culture Shock

Susie Yang makes a strong first impression with her thrilling debut novel, White Ivy.

Fashion Crimes

When fabulous clothes are outlawed, only outlaws will be fabulous.

Russian Chronicles

Leap year problems

Goa and Greenhouses

A well-to-do Russian tries to bring his green new ideal to life in a Russian village. Not all goes to plan.

Postscript

Another Victim of Sandarmokh

Food & Drink

Taste of the Holidays

Russia's Munchausens

The Legendary Baron Celebrates 300 Years

In the Winter Palace

In this prologue to Alpsten’s new historical fiction novel, Tsarina, we meet Catherine I at the critical turning point in her life: the death of her husband Peter I (the Great).

All That Remains

Tracing own family lineage back to 1667

“Finger Printing” Turquoise

Answering the Question of Provenance

Rumaan Alam – Leave the Expectations Behind

In his third novel, Leave the World Behind, published in october by Ecco, Rumaan Alam delivers, a propulsive narrative that speaks to the challenges and crises of the moment – racial injustice, environmental catastrophe, sheltering in place– while defying any expectations of what a novel written by a gay indian american man should be.

Ever Thought About Breaking Free, Abandoning Your Responsabilities, Running Away From Your Life?

Toby Dorr's Great Escape

Rumaan Alam – Delusions of Whiteness

In Rumaan Alam’s new thriller, a white family staying at a Hamptons Airbnb is startled when the Black owners knock on the door.

Readings

Chicks Rule the Screen Russian women shine in a fresh TV series

Life is just a bowl of…Raspberries?

MID-JULY CAME ON CHILLY AND WITH RAIN TO SPARE, BUT month’s end was suddenly dry and warm. That gave the wild raspberries, which usually ripened in early August, an unexpected influx of the mysteriously delicate juice that make them so very different from the fragrant but bland garden raspberries. So the gals, without so much as a word to each other, started making forays into the closest of the raspberry patches that in the past couple of years had run rampant over the felled areas of the forest. After the nearest mile or two had been picked clean, they put their heads together and started going in threes, in fives, because the forest doesn’t care for any tomfoolery.

Russian Chronicles

An illustrated page from the Russian Chronicle, showing the Battle of the Ugra River.The “Battle” of the Ugra River

Under Review

GOOD CITIZENS NEED NOT FEAR

In Search of Terra Incognita

The risk one runs in exploring these unknown and Icy Seas is so very great, that I can be bold to say, that no man will ever venture farther than I have done and that the lands which may lie to the South will never be explored. ~ British Captain James Cook

LIFE IN ISOLATION

The universal quarantining and self-isolating due to COVID-19 has put millions of people in something of a predicament. Every day is the same as the one before, and sometimes we can’t even get together with our closest family members. But for a few, being solitary is a way of life. And so we decided to touch base with people in remote corners of Russia who, because of their jobs or the unique features of their culture, socialize with only a narrow circle of people, yet somehow never feel lonely.

Food & Drink

How to Start a Fall Day

Culture & Critics - “How Did I End Up Like This?”

Seamus Heaney’s journey into darkness

Essay – “No Novel About Any Black Woman Could Ever Be the Same After This”

That’s how Toni Morrison described Gayl Jones’s first book in 1975. Jones has published to great acclaim and experienced unspeakable tragedy. Now she is releasing her first novel in more than 20 years.

Writing in Spanish Elevates Academia

An estimated fifty-three million Spanish speakers live in the United States.

Hashtag Highlights Anti-Black Bias

The month of June brought the continuation of daily protests around the United States, and the world, in recognition of violence against Black people and the importance of Black lives.

Nate Marshall – Transformation

In his second collection, Finna, Nate Marshall explores the failures and triumphs of language, the power of community, and abolition as a poetic praxis.

What to Do About William Faulkner

A white man of the Jim Crow South, he couldn’t escape the burden of race, yet derived creative force from it.

David Coppereld 's Wild Ride

Armando Iannucci’s mad, loving, and brilliant adaptation of Dickens’s novel