Join us for a talk and discussion with literary translator Max Lawton, Feb 17, 4:30-6:00 PM EST

Hosted by the Swarthmore Russian Section of Modern Languages and Literatures, and generously supported by a Cooper Serendipity Grant, the English, Comparative Literature programs, the Student Project on East European Relations, and the Bryn Mawr College Russian Department.

Despite his titanic stature in Russia, little of Vladimir Sorokin's work has been translated into English and none of his extreme early work ever has. As the modern heir to Nabokov in a great many respects and akin to a Russian version of Thomas Pynchon, Sorokin deserves a great deal more attention. Over the next five years, as part of a joint project by NYRB Classics and Dalkey Archive Press, eight works by Sorokin will be published in English for the first time, all translated by Max Lawton. These works draw from both his extreme early period of creation and his gentler later books. At this reading and discussion, Lawton will discuss Sorokin's work and his translation practice, and will read an excerpt from one of his recent translations.