TWO VOICES: Mikhail Shishkin and Marian Schwartz in Conversation with Scott Esposito

Summary: Mikhail Shishkin, the only Russian writer ever to win all three of his country's major book awards, joined Two Voices for his first ever U.S. appearance to discuss his novel Maidenhair. Widely praised from London to Paris to Berlin, Maidenhair finally reached the United States in 2012 by way of Open Letter Books. In this event Shishkin was joined by his translator, Marian Schwartz, for a wide-ranging conversation with the Center's Scott Esposito. They began by discussing the Russian critical response to Maidenhair (with one critic vowing to eat his underwear in public if the book sold more than 50,000 copies - ;it did) before talking about Shishkin's relationship with his home country, the benefit of his years living in Switzerland, and why he claims he "hates" the Russian language.