The Slavic Literature Pod

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The Slavic Literature Pod

Your shelf-help guide to the Slavic canon.

16/09/2025

A little late, but out today: The latest For Your Consideration explores Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic and Hai Fan's Delicious Hunger.

"THE PEOPLE ARE DEAF," declares Sonya's sign in the face of occupying soldiers, as Deaf Republic explores how the town of Vasenka resists them.

Delicious Hunger takes the opposite perspective, telling the stories of guerilla fighters for the Malaysian Communist Party from the 70's to the 80's. Hai Fan, a former guerilla himself, tells their stories with a deft tenderness for the people and moments between combat.

Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/deaf-republic

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/deaf-republic-spotify

03/09/2025

Did you catch it?

My latest For Your Consideration continues Yevgenia Belorusets reflections on Ukraine under war in "War Diary," plus a detour into Barcelona to explore a women's life through the Spanish Civil War in Mercè Rodoreda's "The Time of Doves."

Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/war-diary-belorusets

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/war-diary-spotify

08/08/2025

Out today! For your consideration: Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

Both collections document the stories of people in war -- in Ukraine and in Vietnam -- guiding their readers with a blend of fact and fiction.

Lucky Breaks, in particular, blurs this line, depicting stories of women's lives and struggles in the Donbas region at war -- prior to Russia's full-scale invasion.

Get it anywhere you listen to your podcasts!

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/lucky-breaks

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/lucky-breaks-spotify

18/07/2025

Out today! For Your Consideration: Alindarka's Children by Alhierd Bacharevič and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.

Both novels tackle the problems of people native to a land that is now hostile to them, in one way or another.

In one novel, we have two Belarusian children on a folkloric-like journey; in the other, we have a Native American WW2 veteran struggling with PTSD. Both explore how they and their communities adapt--or sometimes fail to adapt.

Get it anywhere you listen to your podcasts!

Apple podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/alindarka-ceremony
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/alindarka-spotify

(Photo credit to Jula Cimafiejeva)

02/07/2025

Psst -- did you miss it?

A new For Your Consideration, looking back on some books that have profoundly influenced my life.

We'll go from the beautiful prose of William T. Vollmann's Europe Central to complicated memories in Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/europe-central
Spotify Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/europe-central-spotify

13/06/2025

Out Today: A new sub-series I'm called "For Your Consideration," solo episodes covering books I think are worth reading.

We're tackling creative license on your own life in Teffi's Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me -- plus Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods.

It's a long one, so you have my apologies! Get the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts.

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/teffi-rasputin
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/rasputin-teffi

06/06/2025

Out Today: Inessa Fishbeyn and C. D. C. Reeve joined me to talk about Marina Tsvetaeva's The Story of Sonechka.

Tsvetaeva's book recalls her relationship with the actress Sonia Holliday, opening questions about memory, how we see each other, and her q***r relationships.

Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!

02/05/2025

Out Today: I sat down with Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky to talk about Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych's magical realist novel The Moscoviad.

We chatted about how colonized people experience imperial core, the so-called friendship of peoples, and how Andrukhovych subverts machismo.

Get it anywhere you listen to podcasts!

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/moscoviad
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/the-moscoviad

23/04/2025

Out now: I sat down with Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich to talk about I Live I See, poems by Vsevolod Nekrasov that they collected and translated.

Tune in to hear us talk about his minimalist, repetitious style and an unusual first: a poem delivered by snapping.

Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!

04/04/2025

Out Today: I sat down with Yaroslav Barsukov to talk about his book Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory.

The novel drops an disgraced imperial minister on the borders of a country ready for war, surrounded by political in-fighting on all sides, and overseeing a military project founded on technologies they barely understand.

We chatted about his deployment of personal and national memory, metaphorical resurrection, and how Barsukov complicates his themes.

Get it anywhere you listen to podcasts!

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/sleeping-worlds-apple
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/sleeping-world

21/03/2025

Out today: Don your cherkeska and round up the horses, we're talking Leo Tolstoy's Hadji Murat.

I sat down with Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich to chat about the book, Tolstoy's conceptions of art, and her book, Art in Doubt.

Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts!

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/slav-lit-hadji-murat

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/slav-lit-hadji-murat-spotify

07/03/2025

Out today: I chatted with Baqytgul Sarmekova about her translation of Baqytgul Sarmekova's collection of short stories To Hell with Poets.

Our conversation covers Sarmekova's portrayal of Kazakh society, how she tangles with violence and disappointment, and its tentative hopefulness.

Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!

Apple podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/slaviclitpod-kali

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/slaviclitpod-kali-spotify

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