Please join us on December 7, 2015, for a discussion with Eugene Vodolazkin. In conjunction with Russian Literature Week in New York City, Vodolazkin will visit the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia to present LAURUS, his first novel to be translated into English. He will also discuss the relationship between his work in Old Russian Literature, folklore, and medieval history and his personal writing — two worlds he never thought would collide — and he’ll also discuss why interest in Medieval history and literature is experiencing a resurgence.
Vodolazkin was born in Kiev and has worked in the department of Old Russian Literature at Pushkin House since 1990. He is an expert in medieval history and folklore and has numerous academic books and articles to his name. He lives with his family in St. Peterburg, Russia.
LAURUS won both the Yasnaya Polyana award and the Big Book Award when it was first published in Russian in 2012, and it has been compared to both Umberto Eco’s writing and The Cantebury Tales. It is his second novel; his debut novel, Solovyov and Larionov (Oneworld 2016), was shortlisted for the Andrei Bely Prize and the Big Book Prize.
LAURUS was translated into English by Lisa Hayden. Hayden is a literary translator who lives in Scarborough, Maine. Her other translations from the Russian include Vladislav Otroshenko’s Addendum to a Photo Album and Marina Stepnova’s The Women of Lazarus. Her website, Lizok’s Bookshelf, focuses on contemporary Russian fiction. She received her MA in Russian literature at the University of Pennsylvania and lived in Moscow from 1992 to 1998.
This event is co-sponsored by the NYU Department of Russian & Slavic Studies
