Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. It also deals with bisexuality and immigrant parenting. Anthony Marra called it “…a book of succinct abundance, dazzling in its particulars, expansive in its scope,” and Karen Bender said, “Olga Zilberbourg is a writer to read right now.”

Zilberbourg’s writing has appeared in Narrative, World Literature Today, Words without Borders, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Consequence, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Born in Leningrad, USSR, in a Russian-speaking Jewish family, she makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание [Hold Your Breath] from Vremya Press. She serves as a consulting editor at Narrative Magazine and as a co-facilitator of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. Together with Yelena Furman, she has co-founded Punctured Lines, a feminist blog about literature from the former Soviet Union. She is currently at work on her first novel.

A profile of Zilberbourg’s work has been compiled by the University of Oregon’s Slavic Immigrant Artists in the Northwest program. She was a member of the 2022 Jury of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the panel of judges for the 2025 Kevin McIlvoy Book Prize. She won a Jewish Book Council and the Betsy Hotel Writer’s Contest. She appeared on the BBC World Service program the Forum to talk about the Soviet Wizard of Oz, Aleksandr Volkov. Where Does the Sea Flow, a short film based on one of her stories, was a finalist in the Manhattan Short Film Festival.

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Contact: olga [at] z***g [dot] com (*** stand for my last name and this website’s address, an attempt to avoid bots)

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