Olga Zilberbourg’s English-language debut LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES (WTAW Press) explores “bicultural identity hilariously, poignantly,” according to The Moscow Times. This collection received warm reviews from The Common, Los Angeles Review of Books, NYU’s Jordan Center, The Manchester Review, Rain Taxi, among others, and was named a finalist in the 2019 Foreword INDIES Book Award.
Zilberbourg’s writing has appeared in World Literature Today, The Believer, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Born in Leningrad, USSR, she grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, and makes her home in San Francisco, California. She has published four collections of stories in Russia, including most recent Задержи дыхание 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.
Other fun facts include: Zilberbourg has appeared on the BBC World Service program the Forum to talk about the Soviet Wizard of Oz, Alexander Volkov. She is a member of the 2022 Jury of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Zilberbourg’s work won San Francisco’s Litquake Writing Contest and Willesden Herald International Short Story Prize, and earned nods from Lascaux Prize and Eyelands International Short Story Prize. 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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Olga Zilberbourg 