The Week in Books
Along with the 45 Indian authors arriving in London next week to take part in the book fair's India programme will be a smaller touring party of Russian writers. Like the Indian promotion, Russian Literature Week is based at the fair but also takes in central London - there are nightly discussions with authors at Waterstone's, Piccadilly, starting on Monday - and events around the country (see academia-rossica.org/en/literature). Among those in the squad are Ludmila Ulitskaya, the playwright and novelist recently longlisted for the Booker International prize, and two winners of the Russian Booker, Vladimir Makanin and Olga Slavnikova.
The most fascinating tourist, however, is Dmitry Bykov, a highly versatile author whose output includes a novel described as a "bombshell" when published in 2007. Jewhad (the Russian title is an abbreviation with many meanings, one an echo of Gogol's Dead Souls) is apparently the title planned for the English translation due to appear next year. A dystopian satire about ethnic conflict, Jewhad (aka ZhD) portrays clashes between peoples clearly intended to represent Russians and Jews. Bykov, who calls it "the best book that can possibly be written today", has no less candidly said it is "fiercely Russophobic and fiercely antisemitic, depicting both Russians and Jews as virus nations which bring misfortune and decay to whatever they're trying to colonise".
You might expect Russian literature week to marginalise such a dangerous satirist, but in fact it treats Bykov as its biggest star. He has at least one gig on every day of the six-day programme, wearing his different hats as novelist, journalist, poet, children's writer and biographer; they include an appearance on Tuesday on the same panel as the deputy head of Russia's federal press agency, and an event with Russian-speaking kids in Edinburgh on Thursday.
John Dugdale
