Julia Wiener’s youth coincided with the “Thaw” period, and her maturity – with the years of “Soviet stagnation”, which, in her case, ended with emigration to Israel in the early 1970s. She describes her wartime childhood, her Komsomol-student youth, her subsequent disillusionment, and her meetings with well-known writers in a humorous style and colorful detail. She brings to life colorful characters – from her Moscow communal apartment neighbors to a hippie London lord, or an Arab family, headed by a devotee of classical Russian literature.
This isn’t self-help. It’s not a parody either. It’s something stranger and smarter: a satirical, uncategorizable book about belief, leadership, algorithmic power, and the performance of divinity in modern life.
A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” -Ilya Kaminsky
From the myths of the ancient Near East to the secluded palaces of forgotten empires, Harems: Origins and Eunuchs uncovers how the idea of the harem first emerged — not only as a symbol of power and beauty, but also as a reflection of human desire, faith, and control. With the precision of a historian and the sensitivity of a storyteller, Sergii Mazurkevych traces the hidden world of eunuchs, devotion, and intrigue that shaped entire civilizations. A thoughtful and visually rich journey into one of history’s most secret institutions.
This excellent anthology, compiled and edited by Julia Nemirovskaya, showcases poems by Russian (and Russian-speaking) poets who express their absolute rejection of Russia’s war against Ukraine.