Kirjahaku

Maria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. An award-winning poet and prose writer, she has also founded a major platform for independent journalism. Her verse blends formal mastery with a keen ear for the evolution of spoken language. As Russia’s political climate has turned increasingly repressive, Stepanova has responded with engaged writing that grapples with the persistence of violence in her country’s past and present. Some of her most remarkable recent work as a poet and essayist considers the conflict in Ukraine and the debasement of language that has always accompanied war.The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova’s work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution. Stepanova’s poetic voice constantly sets out in search of new bodies to inhabit, taking established forms and styles and rendering them into something unexpected and strange. Recognizable patterns of ballads, elegies, and war songs are transposed into a new key, infused with foreign strains, and juxtaposed with unlikely neighbors. As an essayist, Stepanova engages deeply with writers who bore witness to devastation and dramatic social change, as seen in searching pieces on W. G. Sebald, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Susan Sontag. Including contributions from ten translators, The Voice Over shows English-speaking readers why Stepanova is one of Russia’s most acclaimed contemporary writers.

Maria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. An award-winning poet and prose writer, she has also founded a major platform for independent journalism. Her verse blends formal mastery with a keen ear for the evolution of spoken language. As Russia’s political climate has turned increasingly repressive, Stepanova has responded with engaged writing that grapples with the persistence of violence in her country’s past and present. Some of her most remarkable recent work as a poet and essayist considers the conflict in Ukraine and the debasement of language that has always accompanied war.The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova’s work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution. Stepanova’s poetic voice constantly sets out in search of new bodies to inhabit, taking established forms and styles and rendering them into something unexpected and strange. Recognizable patterns of ballads, elegies, and war songs are transposed into a new key, infused with foreign strains, and juxtaposed with unlikely neighbors. As an essayist, Stepanova engages deeply with writers who bore witness to devastation and dramatic social change, as seen in searching pieces on W. G. Sebald, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Susan Sontag. Including contributions from ten translators, The Voice Over shows English-speaking readers why Stepanova is one of Russia’s most acclaimed contemporary writers.

With the death of her aunt, the narrator is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands, these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and repressions of the last century.In dialogue with writers like Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, and Osip Mandelstam, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. Dipping into various forms--essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue, and historical documents--Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and personalities and offers an entirely new and bold exploration of cultural and personal memory.

The outbreak of Covid-19 cut short Maria Stepanova's 2020 stay in Cambridge. Back in Russia, she spent the ensuing months in a state of torpor--the world had withdrawn from her, time had "gone numb." When she awoke from this state, she began to read Ovid, and the shock of the pandemic dissolved into the voices and metaphors of a transformative, epochal experience. Her book-length poem Holy Winter, written in a frenzy of poetic inspiration, speaks of winter and war, of banishment and exile, of social isolation and existential abandonment. Stepanova finds sublime imagery for the process of falling silent, interweaving love letters and travelogues, Chinese verse and Danish fairy tales into a polyphonic evocation of frozen time and its slow thawing.As a poet and essayist, Stepanova was a highly influential figure for many years in Moscow's cosmopolitan literary scene until it was strangled by Putin, along with civil liberties and dissent. Like Joseph Brodsky before her, she has mastered modern poetry's rich repertoire of forms and moves effortlessly between the languages and traditions of Russian, European, and transatlantic literature, potently yet subtly creating a voice like no other.Her poetry, which here echoes verses by Pushkin and Lermontov, Mandelstam and Tsvetaeva, is not hermetic. She takes in and incorporates the confusing signals from social networks and the media, opening herself up to the voices of kindred poets like Sylvia Plath, Inger Christensen, and Anne Carson.

The writer M has lived in the city of B ever since her homeland declared war on a neighboring state. Exiled, she is unable to write there and suffers from loneliness, shame, and despair, but then M is invited to give a reading at a literary festival in a nearby country. After a series of missed connections and mishaps, including losing her phone, she finds herself all alone in the wrong coastal town, befriending a local man and attending the circus...In this brief interlude, severed from reality, it seems as if M may finally escape from herself, from her past, from her nationality. She could start all over from scratch and join the circus. Written in Maria Stepanova's rich and hypnotic prose, The Disappearing Act oscillates between reality and dream, between an oppressive present and a lost past, between life and literature.

War of the Beasts and the Animals is Russian poet Maria Stepanova’s first full English-language collection. Stepanova is one of Russia’s most innovative and exciting poets and thinkers, and founding editor of Colta.ru, an online independent site which has been compared to Huffington Post in its status and importance. IImmensely high-profile in Russia for many years, recognition in the West has followed the publication of her documentary novel In Memory of Memory, first in German translation in 2018 and now with Sasha Dugdale's English translation – published by Fitzcarraldo in the UK and by New Directions in the US – longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2021. War of the Beasts and the Animals includes her recent long poems of conflict ‘Spolia’ and ‘War of the Beasts and Animals’, written during the Donbas conflict, as well as a third long poem ‘The Body Returns’, commissioned by Hay International Festival in 2018 to commemorate the Centenary of the First World War. In all three long poems Stepanova’s assured and experimental use of form, her modernist appropriation of poetic texts from around the world and her constant consideration of the way that culture, memory and contemporary life are interwoven make her work both pleasurable and deeply necessary. This collection also includes two sequences of poems from her 2015 collection Kireevsky: sequences of ‘weird’ ballads and songs, subtly changed folk and popular songs and poems which combine historical lyricism and a contemporary understanding of the effects of conflict and trauma. Stepanova uses the ready forms of ballads and songs, but alters them, so they almost appear to be refracted in moonlit water. The forms seem recognisable, but the words are oddly fragmented and suggestive, they weave together well-known refrains of songs, apparently familiar images, subtle half-nods to films and music.

The outbreak of Covid-19 cut short Maria Stepanova’s stay in Cambridge. Back in Russia, she spent the ensuing months in a state of torpor – the world had withdrawn from her, time had ‘gone numb’. When she awoke from this state, she began to read Ovid, and the shock of the pandemic dissolved into the voices and metaphors of an epochal experience. Her book-length poem Holy Winter 20/21, written in a frenzy of poetic inspiration, speaks of winter and war, of banishment and exile, of social isolation and existential abandonment. Stepanova finds sublime imagery for the process of falling silent, interweaving love letters and travelogues, Chinese verse and Danish fairy tales into a polyphonic evocation of frozen and slowly thawing time. Following her previous book of poetry, War of the Beasts and the Animals – in part a response to the Donbas conflict – her book’s title is even more prophetic now, echoing a famous patriotic Soviet song from 1941, ‘a holy war is underway’. Born in 1972, Maria Stepanova – as poet and essayist – was a highly influential figure for many years in Moscow’s cosmopolitan literary scene until its suppression along with civil liberties and dissent under Putin’s latter-day reign of terror. Her first prose work In Memory of Memory established her internationally as one of the most important intellectual voices of contemporary Russia. Her poetry, which here echoes verses by Pushkin and Lermontov, Mandelstam and Tsvetaeva, is not hermetic. She takes in the confusing signals from social networks and the media, opening herself up to the voices of kindred poets like Sylvia Plath, Inger Christensen and Anne Carson. She has moreover mastered modern poetry’s rich repertoire of forms and moves effortlessly between the linguistic and traditional spaces of Russian, European and transatlantic literature. In her prose, Stepanova searches for the essence of the moment in the maelstrom of historical time. As an essayist, she traces the reactions of her critical consciousness; taken together, her politically alert commentaries form a chronicle of the troubled present.

With the death of her aunt, Maria Stepanova is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, postcards, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled, these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish family managed to survive the twentieth century.

With the death of her aunt, Maria Stepanova is left to sift through an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters, diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands, these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and repressions of the last century. In dialogue with writers like Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag and Osip Mandelstam, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. Dipping into various forms - essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue and historical documents - Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and personalities and offers an entirely new and bold exploration of cultural and personal memory.

Da fasteren dør, går Maria Stepanova på opdagelse i hendes lejlighed, der er fyldt med ting, men i virkeligheden ikke fortæller ret meget om sin beboer. Det forhindrer dog ikke Stepanova i ihærdigt at søge efter spor af hele sin umiddelbart usynlige slægt i Ruslands dramatiske historie. Kan vi forstå os selv uden at kende de mennesker og steder, vi stammer fra? Og hvad betyder det for os, hvis der ikke er nogen tilbage til at fortælle om fortiden, og hvis slægtsforskningen heller ikke fører til ret mange håndgribelige resultater? Disse store spørgsmål undersøger Stepanova i sit rummelige og ambitiøse prosaværk, som går i dialog med erindringsforskning, filosofi, kunst, populærkultur og forfattere som Marcel Proust, W.G. Sebald, Osip Mandelsjtam og Marina Tsvetajeva. Ydermere sætter hun sig den udfordring ikke at få ejerfornemmelser over fortidens mennesker, steder og genstande, men så vidt muligt lade dem tale for sig selv. I mange tilfælde må tavse billeder og genstande fortolkes, og Stepanova er udfordret af det mørke og de hemmeligheder, der ligger over store dele af slægtens historie, ikke bare som følge af dens jødiske ophav, men også på grund af diverse krige og sovjettidens politiske omvæltninger. Til minde om erindringen i 2018 modtaget Ruslands store Bolsjaja Kniga-pris var shortlistet til den Internationale Bookerpris i 2021."En forfatter der sikkert i mange år fremover vil blive nævnt i samme åndedrag som Polens Olga Tokarczuk og Belarus' Svetlana Aleksijevitj." THE GUARDIAN"Et imponerende monument, som med sin fragmenterede form formår at flette de store historiske begivenheder sammen med familiehistorien."?????????? POLITIKEN"De seks stjerner virker som et nærigt lysdrys på et enormt himmelhvælv."???????????? JYLLANDS-POSTEN" Stepanovas enestående familieportræt er gennemsyret af en sjælden intellektuel nysgerrighed og en vidunderlig, lavmælt poetisk stemme." BOOKERPRIS-NOMINERINGEN

På vej til et litteraturarrangement strander forfatteren M. i en fremmed by, hun har mistet sin telefon, og ingen ved hvor hun befinder sig. Nogen tid forinden er hun flygtet fra sit hjemland på grund af krig. Hun lever nu som i et limbo, fyldt af skam og fortvivlelse over krigen, afskåret fra sit hjem og sit sprog. Ny fyldes hun af en berusende frihedsfølelse. På dette ukendte sted kan hun være hvem hun vil, gøre hvad som helst. Men minderne vil ikke slippe hende. Hun bliver hele tiden fanget ind af billeder fra barndommen, det sidste bånd til en verden der er ved at forsvinde. Pressen om Til minde om erindringen: ”et unikt prosaværk (…) De seks stjerner virker som et nærigt lysdrys på et enormt himmelhvælv.”(Seks stjerner, JYLLANDS-POSTEN) ”et imponerende monument, som med sin fragmentariske form formår at flette de store historiske begivenheder sammen med familiehistorien.”(Fem hjerter, POLITIKEN) ”Et storværk om erindring.” INFORMATION

Den 9 september 2020 försökte belarusiska säkerhetsstyrkor bryta sig in i Nobelpristagaren Svetlana Aleksijevitjs lägenhet i Minsk. I den appell hon skrev under tiden vände sig Aleksijevitj bland annat till sina ryska kollegor: »Varför tiger ni?« I essän "Brev till en lycklig tid" har den ryska prosaisten Maria Stepanova lagt örat både mot den ryska tystnaden och mot de röster som ändå hörs. Hennes essä är både ett försök att från rysk horisont närma sig den belarusiska erfarenheten och en diagnos över den politiska apati som präglat Ryssland efter protestvågen 2011–12. Med den protestvåg som svept också över Ryssland sedan texten skrevs har den dubbel ­aktualitet.

Belönad med Berman Literature Prize 2023.»Åh, vilken bok. Läs den.« Expressen.När faster Galja dör lämnar hon efter sig en lägenhet full av bråte. Ingen vet var alla gamla saker kommer ifrån och fotoalbumen är fyllda av gåtfulla, främmande ansikten. Författaren börjar sortera bland släktens minnen, och fram växer en märkvärdig text som hon burit inom sig hela livet: en förening av familjekrönika, memoar, essä och historia. Maria Stepanovas jakt efter släktminnen går genom en rad berättelser om fotoalbum, grötdockor, kärleksbrev och angivarbrev, från judiska begravningsplatser till Leningrads belägring. I dialog med författare som Mandelstam, Proust och Sebald skapar hon en på samma gång riktningslös och mycket vittfamnande berättelse. Maria Stepanova, född 1972 i Moskva, är poet, essäist, journalist och chefredaktör för nättidningen colta.ru. Minnen av minnet, hennes första roman, har fått stor uppmärksamhet både i Ryssland och internationellt och bl a belönats med Bolshaya Kniga-priset och Jasnaja Poljanas läsarpris.Nominerad till The 2021 International Booker Prize.»Det blir en akut och djupt berörande skildring skriven ur den personliga erfarenheten av att mitt i den större historiens sönderslitande virvlar bära de döda och efterhandsminnet på sina skuldror.« Expressen»Det är som om Stepanova skakar ett kalejdoskop för att vrida det mot en enhetlig bild och sedan skakar om igen (. . .) en säregen kombination av tungt allvar, ett precist språk och en lättsam smekning.« Svenska Dagbladet»Hennes roman är en serie resor utan mål eller slut, jag absorberas av dem och sörjer bara att själva boken ändå tar slut.« Dagens Nyheter»Resultatet är ett smärre monster till bok som knappast låter sig baxas in i någon känd genrefålla, men också ett verk av det där slaget som läsaren kan slå upp praktiskt taget var som helst och vara säker på att hitta något spännande eller överraskande.« Aftonbladet»Det var länge sedan jag läste en så rik och generös bok. Så på en och samma gång virvlande och distinkt, sträng och lätt, rolig och gripande. Minnen av minnet är inget mindre än ett ömsint praktverk av skönhet och intelligens.« Sydsvenska Dagbladet

Maria Stepanova inleder Kroppens återkomst med att städa diktens rum genom en alfabetsdikt. I fyra sviter, där poesin, "ett mångögt absurt / Väsen med många munnar", lever samtidigt i många kroppar, inventerar hon världen på samma gång som hon frambesvärjer den eller försöker hålla kvar den. Historia och minne vävs in i vanliga människoliv, som en hemsökelse, men också lekfullt, genom poesins omförhandling av tid, kropp och rum. Minnet blir en ensam plats, men också befolkad och gemensam. I ditt huvud finns alltid ett slutet rum,Där en flicka står utan kläder. Maria Stepanova, född i Moskva 1972, är poet, essäist, journalist och chefredaktör för nättidningen Colta. Poesiboken Kroppens återkomst har många teman och berättelsetrådar gemensamma med den internationellt hyllade romanen Minnen av minnet (2019).

När den ödesdigra pandemin bröt ut blev Maria Stepanova tvungen att avsluta en vistelse i Cambridge. Hemma i Ryssland drabbades hon av en förlamande letargi; världen hade dragit sig tillbaka från henne, tiden blivit stum. När hon slutligen kom till sans började hon läsa Ovidius, och chocken efter smittans utbredning löstes upp i otaliga röster och bilder från denna helt ojämförliga gemensamma erfarenhet. Motiv och teman som legat vilande i henne fann med ens varandra, andra teman nådde sin bestämning. På samma sätt som i Kroppens återkomst (2021) fångar Stepanova in historiska och samtida katastrofer i en raffinerad väv av rytmer och stämmor. Långdikten som växer fram blir ett körverk om vinter och krig, fördrivning och exil, social isolering och existentiell övergivenhet - en besvärjelse av en frusen och långsamt tinande tid. Maria Stepanovas roman Minnen av minnet (2019) blev en världssuccé som har belönats med ett stort antal priser. Till den svenska utgåvan av Vinterrit 20/21 fogar Stepanova ett nyskrivet förord som också behandlar Rysslands krig i Ukraina."Stepanova färdas lika lätt mellan öden och sinnesstämningar som flingorna förlorar sig i drivor. Tonen är behärskad och elegisk, klarsynt och livfull. Här finns ledsnad, undran, rådvillhet, men också själslig spänst." Aris Fioretos, DN."Det finns poeter som verkligen aktiverar läshjärnan, och Stepanova är en av dem." Sanna Samuelsson, GP.". . . den skildrar en vintertid, ett slags stelfrusen tillvaro, men Stepanovas poesi är samtidigt så lekfull. Den rör sig obehindrat genom historiska epoker och stilarter, blandar fritt och vilt nästan tvångsmässigt, som ville dikten desperat finna den frihet som ändå finns innanför låsta dörrar." Therese Eriksson, SvD.