One of the best essayists writing in Russian today, Alexander Genis
inhabits that stimulating borderland between the civilizations of
Russia and America, created by the "great migration."
Born in 1953 in Soviet Latvia, Genis emigrated in 1977 to the
United States. There he teamed with Peter Vail to write such
contemporary classics as Native Tongue, a new look at Russian
literature; Paradise Lost: Russian Cuisine in Exile; Americana,
reflections on Russian-American cross-cultural phenomena, and
Inside the Soviet Mind, aphoristic reminiscences of the Soviet
1960s.
Says Genis: "Soviet rule began 36 years before I was born and ended
36 years after with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although I was
born in the middle of this epoch, I feel less a witness to it than
a refugee from it. My life has always consisted of personal events,
nothing historical. Which is why I dare to review the past. I am a
slave to the common-sense narrative."
Since 1990, Genis has been writing on his own. His books include
Russian Postmodernism, new perspectives on post-Soviet culture;
Dovlatov and Environs, literary nonfiction (the book was
short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize in 1999); Tower of Babel,
a collection of cultural studies on the fin de siecle state of the
world; USA from A to Y, and Ivan Petrovich is Dead, a collection of
essays published over the last ten years. In Russia Genis is widely
popular as a presenter of the daily cultural program on Radio
Liberty, "Above the Barriers" as well as a prolific contributor to
leading literary journals. All of his books are "intellectual
bestsellers."
"Genis's wit is pointed without being spiteful, and dazzling without being transient." Tatyana TOLSTAYA One of the best essayists writing in Russian today, Alexander Genis inhabits that stimulating borderland between the civilizations of Russia and America, created by the 'great migration'. Genis is a shrewd and observant critic. His essays are dynamic, informative, and a joy to read. "Genis has positioned himself to see Russia from America and America from Russia, and all of it via China. Milorad PAVIC
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