On the novel Laurus
Eugene Vodolazkin writes on using the language of the past to construct new meaning for the present, and the medieval and postmodern influences for his new novel Laurus.
Russia
Russia – PEN Transmissions
Maidan: one year on
Andrey Kurkov, Vice-President of Ukrainian PEN, reports on his country's revolution and counter-revolution after the first year
The Red Terror and Maximilian Voloshin
Robert Chandler writes about one of the hidden gems in The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry
You speak such good German
Alina Bronsky, Russian-born but writing in German, charts the challenges and opportunities faced by the multilingual author
Life and Fate Redux
Robert Chandler writes from the first Russian conference on Vasily Grossman, author of the monumental Life and Fate,
Soldier No. 9
Andrey Kurkov reports on the latest news from Ukraine,
Kiev’s Militant Spring
Alexei Nikitin writes for PEN Atlas about the tense atmosphere in Kiev, where the café-goers listening to jazz and the remaining protesters on the Maidan barricades await further news from the east of the country
The apricot border with Russia, or separatism on Skype
With the growing troubles in Ukraine, poet and dramatist Liubov Iakymchuk writes for PEN Atlas
World War III: a dress rehearsal
In another exclusive dispatch from Ukraine, Andrey Kurkov describes the atmosphere of tension and surreality in Kiev and Crimea, the schizophrenia of the political situation, and the ominous absence of birds before the arrival of war.
Russian déjà vu at Sochi 2014 – who lost the games?
Mikhail Shishkin writes our second PEN Atlas dispatch on the Sochi Winter Olympics, a story of billion-dollar corruption, Soviet-style propaganda, and a regime bent on hiding opposition and urban decay behind sports kitsch and a new coat of paint.
What is the real cost of the Sochi Winter Olympics?
Hamid Ismailov investigates the underside of the Sochi Olympics for PEN Atlas: while the Western media focuses on LGBT rights, there is also the shocking unheard story of migrant labourers held in captivity, mercury and uranium deposits from construction work, jingoism, corruption and worse
The duty to write
Journalist-turned-freedom-fighter Mikail Eldin writes for PEN Atlas on his experience of the Chechen wars, and how writing a memoir is a way to honour fallen friends, who risked their lives to ensure he might live to tell their story
Worlds apart: Russia online and offline
In this week's PEN Atlas piece, Arkady Babchenko writes on freedom of speech, media and the internet in Russia
The Debut Generation
Alisa Ganieva writes about the republic of Dagestan, winning the Debut Prize, and the moment when the identity of the mysterious author Gulla Khirachev was revealed...
