Category: interview

Berkeley Reading and New Publications

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book panel, Book review, Event, interview, Publication, Readings, review, short story4 Comments

Next week, February 26 at 7 pm, I’ll be reading my work as a part of a long-standing Lyrics & Dirges reading series at Pegasus Books in downtown Berkeley (2349 Shattuck Ave).

I have neither a lyric, nor a dirge, but I might read the latest version of my novel opening, to see how it runs. Hope to see some of you there!

Whether or not you can make it, do read a story of mine just out from Paper Brigade Daily, “Dodo’s Graduation.” I drafted this fiction in June 2021 and workshopped it on Zoom, and the piece is a reflection on the aftereffects of COVID-era lockdown, the San Francisco version.

Thanks to those of you who were able to attend my Zoom conversation with Marat Grinberg about his book The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf (Brandeis UP), hosted by the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, here’s the YouTube recording — where I got to gush about some of my favorite books growing up. The list of all the books mentioned is in the comments below.

Last but not least, here’s my latest book review — and one of the trickiest I’ve ever written: The Lady of the Mine by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, in On the Seawall. Boris Fishman reviewed this book for the New York Times, and his piece is worth reading for the humor, but if you want to know what the book is about, read my piece.

May Events and a New Interview

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Event, interview6 Comments

I recently talked to Jack Boulware about my journey as a writer, growing up in the USSR and Russia and moving to the US, cultural differences, Russia’s recent history and its descent toward war on Ukraine, literary community, and particularly Punctured Lines and my collaborations in bringing together writers from the former Soviet Union writing in English.

Jack co-founded Litquake with Jane Ganahl and co-ran it until last year, providing an amazing platform for some of the events that I have helped organize. At the end of last festival, Jack retired from Litquake and moved on to other things, among them is this Substack newsletter with a particular focus on West Coast’s news and culture. Subscribe! It’s always entertaining and there are so many amazing characters. And read our conversation here.

Speaking about writers community, please join me for two upcoming events.

On May 23, at 6 pm, I’ll be interviewing Sasha Vasilyuk at Telegraph Hill Books (1501 Grant Avenue, SF) about her new novel YOUR PRESENCE IS MANDATORY. Sasha and I share a bit of family history: both of our grandfathers fought in the Red Army against Germany in WWII, both were captured and became POWs, hiding their Jewish identities to survive in the Nazi camps. Later, upon returning to the USSR, they had to hide the fact of their captivity from the Soviet authorities to avoid being sent to the Gulag. They went about this differently, and therein lie the particularities of character and family circumstances that Sasha so wonderfully explores in her novel. I am so happy to see this book out in the world, and I can’t wait to talk to her about it!

Please register for this conversation on Eventbrite!

May 23, 6 pm
Telegraph Hill Books
1501 Grant Avenue, SF

It is also my pleasure to invite you to a reading that San Francisco Writers Workshop–the Tuesday night group that I’ve been attending since 2008 and co-moderating since 2015–is hosting for the benefit of our venue, Noisebridge Hackerspace. Noisebridge has been letting our use their space for free, but they certainly have a large monthly bill. This is our chance to help!

We’ve got an incredibly strong group of regulars whose names on book jackets will undoubtedly very soon grace your bookshelves. I will also read one of my new short-shorts. Come to listen and support us, and I can promise you that you will be entertained and inspired! There will also be a participatory literary game, food, (nonalcoholic) drinks, and a raffle! I think of this event as a giant party, but if I say so, don’t expect dancing. Details below.

May 31, 7 pm
Noisebridge
272 Capp Street, SF
Suggested donation $10

The Soviet Wizard of Oz

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn interview, podcast, Wonderful BooksLeave a comment

I was delighted to participate in the BBC World Service program The Forum dedicated to L. Frank Baum and his 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He was deeply influenced by feminism and had a very interesting life, which makes for a great study. My contribution to the program involved talking about Alexander Volkov, who rewrote Baum’s book for the Soviet audience. Kansas in it appears far less gray and a much happier place to be than in Baum’s original, and the little dog Toto can talk.

Volkov’s novel, The Magician of Emerald City, was published in 1939, coincidentally the year of the release of the Hollywood movie based on Baum’s book. The movie and Baum’s book were completely unknown to most people behind the Iron Curtain, but the Volkov novel was hugely popular. It was foundational reading for me: one of my first chapter books, and the first book I’d read out loud in its entirety to my brother. To know more about all of this, do listen to the BBC show. Huge thanks to Bridget Kendall, the host, and to Anne Khazam, the producer of this show.

BBC World Service – The Forum, The Wizard of Oz: A homegrown American fairy tale

Here’s also the link to my earlier essay that appeared in Lit Hub: Did the Wizard of Oz Subvert Soviet Propaganda?

Conversations Between Friends: Nancy Au and Olga Zilberbourg

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, interview, Like WaterLeave a comment

At the beginning of October, 2019, Nancy Au and Olga Zilberbourg celebrated the publication of their books Spider Love Song and Other Stories and Like Water and Other Stories. The E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore of Oakland, CA, generously hosted their conversation. Nancy grew up in San Francisco and writes about three generations of Chinese-American families. Olga grew up in the Soviet Union and Russia and immigrated to the United States, where she landed in San Francisco. Each of their story collections center on immigrant relationships and complex family dynamics. Following up on their in-person conversation, the authors unpacked their lived experiences and approaches to craft in the email exchange documented here.

Read this conversation in CRAFT magazine.

What’s gained in translation

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn interview, TranslationLeave a comment

I really enjoyed talking to Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds podcast about The Magician of Emerald City, the Soviet version of the Wizard of Oz. This podcast episode is about what’s gained in translation, and Eric found me through the essay I wrote last year for Lit Hub.

Translation so often as seen as a reductive process, a process of loss, and that’s really unfortunate. In this episode, Eric makes a good case–and the one that personally I find to have much better backing–that translation is a process of addition, that it really is a huge boon to the readers and writers out there. Please enjoy this episode and subscribe to the series. Eric does such an excellent job.

Podcast on International Literature

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn interview, podcast1 Comment

Huge thanks to Rita Chang-Eppig for organizing and leading this delightful conversation for GrottoPod about the joys of reading across borders and languages. Tune in here or find us on a podcast reader of your choice!

“What can international literature teach us about our collective past, present and future in these chaotic times? In the latest GrottoPod Gabfest, producer and Grotto fellow Rita Chang-Eppig talks to Jesus Francisco Sierra, Mathangi Subramanian and Olga Zilberbourg about the appeal of international literature, its necessity in our increasingly connected world, and our favorite authors and books, including Akram Aylisli’s Farewell, Aylis! (translated by Katherine E. Young), Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman, Wendy Guerra’s Revolution Sunday (translated by Achy Obejas), and Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge (translated by Stephen Snyder). “

Podcast interview by Jennifer Eremeeva

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, Book review, interview, Like Water, QuoteLeave a comment

Here’s a podcast interview I gave about LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES to Jennifer Eremeeva for the New Books Network. Listen to the audio below or go to Jennifer’s website or download the interview through searching for New Books Network on your favorite podcasting app!

A new generation of Russian emigres is blessed — or cursed — with the ease of long-haul flights and frequent flyer miles, Skype and FaceTime, Google translate, and regulations that seem anyway to be more forgiving about former citizens traveling to and fro. For them, the border has become far more porous than it ever was, and the choices are now more nuanced. However, there are still plenty of cultural minefields to navigate. To this generation that includes writers as disparate as Gary Shteyngart and Irina Reyn comes Olga Zilberbourg with a new collection of short stories, “Like Water and Other Stories.”

https://jennifereremeeva.com/like-water/

Short-form interview with Olga Zilberbourg in Epiphany blog

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, interview, Like WaterLeave a comment

I’m so grateful to Odette Heideman for her deep engagement with my work — she’d published a story of mine, The Green Light of Dawn, in Epiphany literary magazine some years ago, and we’ve stayed in touch since then. She asked thoughtful questions that were fun to respond to. Huge thanks to Kendra Allenby for the portrait!

Read the full interview in Epiphany blog.

Like Water is not a traditional novel, but it reads like a novel in a way, with the immigrant condition as a sort of blanketing narrative. Looking at Like Water as a whole, the immigrant-in-a-new-world is an archetypal character—male, female, young, old—all encompassed in one larger character. Did you sort through stories you had to find the ones that feel this connection? How did it come together?

Thank you for characterizing the book as a non-traditional novel! This is precisely the effect I was going for. My training is in comparative literature, and I’ve done some work in narrative theory. As a reader, I am always conscious about the way I look beyond the characters and the narrators of a book, searching for the consciousness of the implied author to guide my reading experience. Who is that person structuring the information on the page? What can I tell about her politics, about her ethical values, about the strengths and the limitations of her factual knowledge? These questions inform my analysis and appreciation of the text. 

http://epiphanyzine.com/features/2019/11/27/short-form-olga-zilberbourg

My Interview in Write or Die Tribe

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, interview, Like WaterLeave a comment

Thanks to Sam Cohen and Write or Die Tribe for allowing me the opportunity to tell stories behind the stories.

Each of your characters feels like a real person when reading the collection, and the first-person narratives make the stories even more convincing. Is there any part of yourself reflected in these characters, or are their thoughts and words entirely fictionalized? 

There are lots of versions of me in this book. One of the most personal—by which I mean the least crafted—stories in this collection might be “Practice a Relaxing Bedtime Ritual,” about a mother watching her son thrash in his crib after she’s given him an albuterol inhaler for his asthma. This piece started its life as a Facebook post, I believe. 

https://www.writeordietribe.com/spotlight-series/interview-with-olga-zilberbourg

People the Size of Mountains: Q&A with Olga Zilberbourg

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn interview, Like Water1 Comment

My interview with Maddie King of Bloom.

mctking96's avatarBloom

by Maddie King

Olga Zilberbourg is a Russian-American writer who lives in San Francisco and was born during the Cold War. She has three published collections in Russia: The Clapping Land, published by Vremya Press in 2016, The Keys from the Lost House, published by Limbus Press in 2010, and Coffee-Inn, published by Neva Press in 2006.

Like Water and Other Stories, published by WTAW Press in 2019, is Zilberbourg’s first collection of short stories to come out in the United States. Previously, her work has appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Narrative Magazine, World Literature Today, Confrontation, Feminist Studies, Tin House’s The Open Bar, Epiphany, Santa Monica Review, and other print and online publications. 

 I read Like Water and Other Stories in the early days of August, and no other time of year could have better suited. This collection, so fittingly-named, pools stories of…

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