The first Russian stand at BookExpo America New York, 25 - 27 May 2010 This year the BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand took part in BookExpo America, the main fair in the American book industry. The stand was organised by the Russian Federal agency for Press and Mass Communications and represented a range of Russian publishers. BookExpo America is currently undergoing major changes, transforming itself from a fair which focused primarily on the domestic market into an international book forum.

I was delighted and astonished when I received the invitation to be one of the judges of this year’s ‘Rossica’ Translation Prize. Delighted – because, by accepting, I would be able to indulge myself with a clear conscience in reading (or, as it often turned out, rereading) many works of Russian literature rather than doing what I all too often do – reading works about Russian literature (and various other things). Astonished – because I am not a prolific or high-profile translator of Russian literature, so I was unsure about why I had been chosen. However, not being known for false modesty, I did feel that I was reasonably well qualified for the work ahead.

by Daniil Kharms
Translated by Matvei Yankelevich
Overlook Press, 2007, pp. 266
Daniil Kharms has long been heralded as one of the most iconoclastic writers of the Soviet era, but the full breadth of his achievement is only in recent years, following the opening of Kharms' archives, being recognized internationally.

by Andrey Platonov
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Angela Livingstone, Olga Meerson and Eric Naiman
New York Review of Books; 2007; pp. 58
The Soviet writer Andrey Platonov saw much of his work suppressed or censored in his lifetime. In recent decades, however, these lost works have reemerged, and the eerie poetry and poignant humanity of Platonov's vision have become ever more clear. For Nadezhda Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky, Platonov was the writer who most profoundly registered the spiritual shock of revolution.

by Various
Translated by Oleg Burkov, Larissa Fomenko, Andrei Konstantinov, Nika Skandiaka, Lika Sokolovskaya and Vitaliy Eyber
Smokestack Books; 2007; pp.83
This anthology brings together, for the first time in English, a selection of contemporary poetry from Novosibirsk, Siberia's largest city and the exact geographical centre of Russia. Writing about their extraordinary country, they have adapted Russian literary traditions to its exceptional conditions.

by Anatoly Riasov
Translated by Julia Konysheva (pseudonym Julga Heiligenbeil)
Kaftan Smekha; 2007; pp. 44
Although 'Exfoliation', analogously to a classic dramatic performance, has a plot, climax and conclusion, this action is based not on the logical, but emotional and associative links. It is not the plot that plays the key tole (in spite of its being 'dissolved' in the performance), but categories and metaphors, being the conceptual stem.

Russia, 2007, 93 min
Dir. Svetlana Proskurina
The narrative in Svetlana Proskurina's latest film is deceptively simple. Two middle-aged women, Katia and Valia, are looking back on a distant youth in which, together with a man called Valentin, they formed a tragic love triangle.

Russia, 2008, 104 min
Dir. Mikhail Kalatozishvili
A film created by the grandson of the great Mikhail Kalatozov, the only Russian director to ever win a Palme d’Or. 'Wild Field' tells the story of a young doctor called Dmitri who is sent to the Kazakh steppe.

Tsvetaeva scholar Angela Livingstone has translated a number of Tsvetaeva's essays on art and writing, compiled in a book called Art in the Light of Conscience. Livingstone's translation of Tsvetaeva's "The Ratcatcher" was published as a separate book. She has published articles on and translations of Pasternak and Platonov as well as a number of books, including: Pasternak (1969, with Donald Davie); Lou Andreas-Salomé (1984); Pasternak on Art and Creativity (1985); Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago (1989); and A Hundred Years of Andrei Platonov (2002)

Rumiantsev’s Arc – Library of a Nation
If the book lies at the heart of Russian culture, then the most vital, life-preserving institution in Russian culture is the library. This issue of ROSSICA focuses on the remarkable history and collections of Russia’s largest library: originally called the Rumiantsev Museum, later the Lenin Library (Leninka) it is now the Russian State Library.

Rumiantsev’s Arc – Library of a Nation
If the book lies at the heart of Russian culture, then the most vital, life-preserving institution in Russian culture is the library. This issue of ROSSICA focuses on the remarkable history and collections of Russia’s largest library: originally called the Rumiantsev Museum, later the Lenin Library (Leninka) it is now the Russian State Library.