Russia - A New Chapter
Please click here for the full Cultural Programme brochure for Russia Market Focus.
Please click here for some illuminating images from the 2011 Fair.
Please have a look at a short video with crime writer Boris Akunin.
Now in our fourth year as strategic partner of the London Book Fair, we welcomed over fifty Russian writers and publishers to the UK this past April as part of the Russia Market Focus cultural programme.
This high-profile event brings opportunities to Russia and the rest of the world at the point where business and cultural relations intersect. Through the market focus programme we have already created opportunities for international collaboration and highlighted the cultural context of the Arab World in 2008, India in 2009 and South Africa in 2010, working closely with the London Book Fair to provide publishers from emerging markets the opportunity to forge new relationships with their counterparts in the UK.
The UK and Russia share a love of books and an intertwined rich literary heritage that has provided strength and inspiration to many of our great writers including Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Spender and Brodsky. As part of the programme British writers including Adam Foulds, Roma Tearne, Joanne Harris, James Meek and Linda Grant met readers, translators and writers in Russia, just as their counterparts did in April at the London Book Fair. The market focus cultural programme highlights the importance of these ties today, and provides opportunities to develop them afresh.
A mix of both established and emerging writers from all over Russia took part in a series of events at the London Book Fair as well as in cultural venues around London, and the UK.
Participants included Russian Booker Prize winners Mikhail Shiskin, Alexander Illichevsky, Ludmila Ulitskaya and Olga Slavnikova; Dmitry Bykov, one of Russia’s most prominent and admired writers and public intellectuals; Andrei Bitov, President and co-founder of the Russian PEN Club and Vice-president of International PEN; National Bestseller Award winning author Zakhar Prilepin; multi-award winning novelist, Dina Rubina; Russia’s most successful crime author, Polina Dashkova; Eureka Prize winning author German Sadulaev; foremost Russian science-fiction writer Sergey Lukyanenko; award-winning poet and cultural critic Alexander Skidan and former chess fanatic and acknowledged master of contemporary Russian prose, Vladimir Makanin.
Also contributing to the diverse programme was Leo Tolstoy’s great-great-grandson, Vladimir Tolstoy; award winning poet Maria Stepanova; children’s writer Andrey Usachev and the innovative journalist and writer Dmitry Glukhovsky whose first novel 'Metro 2033', originally published on his website went on to become an interactive experiment and subsequently a computer game.
The Russia Market Focus 2011 programme was organised by the British Council, the strategic partner of the London Book Fair, and The Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication and Academia Rossica as their official partner. A selection of writers participating have also been supported by the Debut Prize and New Literary Observer.
Partners include:
Aberystwyth University; Debut prize; English PEN; Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature; Foyles Bookshop; Free the Word; Free Word; London Review of Books Bookshop; Modern Poetry in Translation; New Literary Observer; New Writing North; Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA); Newcastle University; Oxford Literary Festival; Publishers Association; Pushkin House; Southbank Centre; University of Leeds; Wales Arts International; Wales Literature Exchange; Writers’ Centre Norwich; Translators House, Wales; Stephen Spender Trust and Princess Dashkova Russian Centre at the University of Edinburgh.
For Press Enquiries please contact: Fiona McMorrough / Jessica Axe, FMCM Associates on: 020 7405 7422 email: fionam@fmcm.co.uk / jessica@fmcm.co.uk
Image above left: An audience with Russian crime writer Boris Akunin, London Book Fair 2011. © Frank Noon
Open the original version of this page.
Usablenet Assistive is a UsableNet product. Usablenet Assistive Main Page.