Igor Pomeranzev

Also by Igor Pomeranzev

• November 08, 2011

  Across The Barriers: Reflections On Journalism

  The drama of journalism is embodied in the etymology of the word. "Jour" in French means day. Daily publication is the bread of journalism. After 24 hours the bread is stale.

• May 24, 2010

  Brodsky on Donne: 'The Poet Is Engaged In The Translation Of One Thing Into Another'

  Today marks the 70th anniversary of the birth in Leningrad of poet Joseph Brodsky. In 1981, I interviewed Brodsky in London on the occasion of another anniversary -- 350 years since the death of poet John Donne.

• February 24, 2010

  A Dialogue Of The Unhearing And Unheard

  Radio jamming is the classical music of dictatorship. Now that music is being played in Iran, being played at full volume: Western radio stations broadcasting in Persian can no longer be heard there. I have my own history of relations with this classical music.

• February 10, 2010

  How The Loss Of Empire Made Me Young Again

  As I grew up, I was a model "older brother," and I even took an imperial interest in learning their language. It was when I was about 18 that I realized I no longer wanted to play this game, or to count myself among the infinite millions of Russians who, without a trace of irony, called themselves a "great nation."

• November 23, 2009

  A Bird Over the Dnieper

  It was Gogol I turned to in my search for an image of Ukraine. It is a tabula rasa; this is both an advantage and a weakness.

• August 27, 2009

  Revolutionary Shouting And Dead Silence

  I continue to pay for the events of 1968. As fate would have it, I have lived and worked in Prague since 1995. And all this time I have felt how keenly I am unloved. One stark reminder came last summer, when I was a speaker at the Prague International Writers' Festival. My name and the name of the country that is the home of the language I write in (Russia) were featured on posters promoting the festival. One of these posters was hanging in the city’s main square, and some sincere Russophobe had lovingly blacked them out, presumably not because he objected to my verse.

• July 31, 2009

  The Case Of The Missing Russian Crime Novel

  Many historians of literature tell us that the heart of the Western novel is property conflict -- conflict over an inheritance or some other sacred bourgeois value. The essence of the Russian novel, on the other hand, is the drama of love, the drama of a soul in torment, the tragedy of a hero misunderstood by his contemporaries.

• June 23, 2009

  Zoological Pen-Mates Gather To Sniff, Shake Paws

  Writers' festivals are gatherings of moles and bears who every so often crawl out of their burrows and lairs to engage in a round of mutual paw-shaking, and the prestigious annual Prague International Writers' Festival, which just ended, is no exception.