Category: Russia

I Remember by Yael

I remember crazy-scary days before. I remember Minsk, summer 1979. The first Hebrew class. My parents were covering the windows of our apartment with blankets. They told me “not a squeak.” People were sneaking in,…

Real Butchers

Leo Tolstoy, Hadji Murat Translators, Pevear and Volokhonsky I should read this short novel every year, in January. This time I read it thinking of Vietnam, the American occupiers (Russians), the indigenous resistance (Chechens), and…

The Russians

It should come as no surprise that black folks would immerse themselves in this Russian literary tradition that is so profound in its willingness to raise unsettling questions. They say when you go into James…

Back to the Brothers?

A friend with whom six years ago I did a reading group of  Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is serious about returning to it sometime soon. Ah, to be re-acquainted with Mitya, Grushenka, Kolya, Markel,…

The Human Spectrum

It was never my goal to put together a collection of horror stories, to overwhelm the reader. I was collecting the human. Dostoevsky asked the question: “How much of the human is there in a…

Beautiful and Toxic Multitudes

Jewish because reading Dostoyevsky at 13  I write poems at restaurant tables Lower East Side, perfect delicatessen intellectual –Allen Ginsberg, Yiddishe Kopf Prompted by a recent tragedy, I turned again to the conclusion of Fyodor…