Swiss Books in Russian

Novels interpreting complicated past, studies of the Swiss dance history, graphic novel, postmodern stories, a play about death: in 2021, all the themes and formats of Swiss literature and drama translated into Russian were diverse as never before:

• The Ivan Limbach Publishing House simultaneously released two books by Swiss authors, the unison reminiscents of the modern history pain points, the events of World War II: Charles Lewinsky «Kastelau», translated by Mikhail Rudnitsky and Sacha Batthyany «What’s That To Do With Me?» translated by Dmitry Silvestrov.
• The Boomkniga published «Sandcastle», a graphic novel by Frederik Peeters and Pierre Oscar Levy, telling a fantastic story about the fear of aging and the inevitability of death (translated from French by Mikhail Khachaturov).
• Two collections of stories by the Swiss writers belonging to different generations and historical eras — Corinna Bille «One Hundred Tiny Cruel Tales» translated by Irina Melnikova («Mirovaya Literaturа» publishing house) and Ilma Rakusa «Loneliness with a rolling” R “» translated by Vladislava Agafonova («Aletheia» publishing house) are similar in many ways: they cannot be attributed to any literary movement, and yet they are unique and distinctively poetic.
• Anne Davier and Annie Suquet’s book «Contemporary Dance in Switzerland» (translated by Pavel Kashtanov) has been published in the Theatrical Series of the Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye publishing house and is the most complete image of the Swiss modern dance development presented in the research literature up to date.
• The new, sixth volume of the anthology of German-language drama SHAG includes the texts of Milo Rau’s performances «Lenin» and «Five easy pieces», one of the last works of Boris Nikitin «Essay on Dying», instruction for assembling the play «Situation rooms» by Rimini Protokoll, a play about women and social norms «AND NOW: THE WORLD! or the so-called outside means nothing to me» by Sibylle Berg and Wolfram Höll’s work «Disko», which resembles a log file of a mixed track.