blogchik (no longer updated)

The most recent Russian novel I've enjoyed lately was Vladimir Voinovich's Monumental Propaganda.

Congratulations on finishing your degree, BTW!

Actually there is a week to go. I gave in my dissertation but there are still exams left.
(Yeah, sorry, I've been referring to my degree as though I already have it.)

I'm so happy that someone responded to my comment-begging for once that I might actually read that. "Vladimir Voinovich's new novel reads at times like a clinical study of the Stalinshchina infection"; sounds good.

Sorry, I'd love to oblige but I don't read Russian books in translation. For post-19 cent prose reading in Russian you can get to online Moshkov's library (lib-dot-ru), there are hundreds of good writers. Reading is an intimate thing, more so than sex this days, and I don't know what's you like.

Tatyana

Michele, congratulations on being almost there with your degree - quite an achievement - and on deciding where to move when you're done. I am sure either NYC or SPB would have been fine (though in different ways, to be sure), but the important thing is that you have made the decision.

Regarding recommended reading, the best I can do is to recommend a couple of Russia-themed short-story collections recently published by Americans - God Lives in St. Petersburg by Tom Bissell (which I blogged about, if you'll excuse the self-promotion, here and here) and The Red Passport by Katherine Shonk.

Whoops, I guess the comments here don't allow html - here are the links I wanted to insert in the last comment:

http://scrapsofmoscow.blogspot.com/2005/02/must-read.html

http://scrapsofmoscow.blogspot.com/2005/02/fruits-of-post-soviet-period.html

Spasibo za vnimanie...

And I'm glad you are back and blogging, by the way - your blog is very enjoyable.

Yay, thanks. So I hear you were just in Hong Kong. That's my home, you know.

Hong Kong, a perfect city.http://altasshagged.blogs.com/atlas_shagged/2005/04/too_long_in_hon.html

Tatyana

Those of you missing Hong Kong may appreciate this bit of local flavor: http://scrapsofmoscow.blogspot.com/2005/04/truly-local-truly-bizarre.html

Tatyana, to resume (sorry for lapse, my poor brain has been tired) - intimate as it may be, would you be so indiscreet as to tear me a leaf out of your little black book of, uh, books?

I read Russian authors in Russian; even if I list couple of dozens I've liked I have no idea were they translated into English or not and how to find them.

For not only Russian authors (beware of strange spellings), whom you can than search in English, see this cry-for-help post http://www.livejournal.com/users/fatlynx/34946.html

I'll also look here: http://www.russianpress.com/glas/authors.html)and mark the ones I had good impression of.

Akseonov, Aleshkovsky, Bitov, Bulgakov, Leonid Filatov (not @ this index), Gandlevsky, Genis (sometimes with Petr Vail), Kabakov, Kharms, Makanin, Mariengof, Pelevin, Sadur, Rubina, Sapgir, Zoshchenko.

Same manner, from Moshkov (lib-dot-ru):

Ancharov, Boris Balter, Veller, Vizbor (poems/bard songs), Vojnovich, Gazdanov, Eugheniya Ginsburg, Dovlatov, Zamyatin, Ibragimbekov (he's mostly a screenwriter), Iskander, Il'f &Petrov, Kassil', Kataev (trilogy *Sacred well...)Viktor Konetsky, Krivin, Pavel Luknitsky, Mamleev, Naiman (proze as well as poetry), Nagibin, Paustovsky, Platonov, Shalamov, Boris Shergin (very specific language, deliberate Northern Russian dialect), Erenburg.

Hope at least some of it you could find

I've only heard of and read four people on your whole list: Bulgakov, Zamyatin, Platonov and Paustovsky. Really, really cannot stand Paustovsky. I have a secret project to ride the subway in New York reading Daria Dontsova rubbish like they do in Petersburg. I like the detektivys! So I hear there's a kniga.com store in Brooklyn? So exciting.

So is the Pelevin you're referring to Viktor Pelevin? I'm taking blind stabs at your recommendations and so am at http://pelevin.nov.ru, which has lots of short stories with enticing titles suitable for my shitty Russian. (There is also a somewhat excessive photo gallery of the author, I feel.)

If you have only 6 yrs of Russian Pelevin might prove a challenging writer - it's not easy even to keep up with him story-like, let alone to get 2nd and 3rd plane. But try, you might like him. (btw, thanx for the site, I'd never imagine him looking like some small-time alcoholic crook)
If you like detective stories, look up Boris Akunin - it's not pure genre but entertaining, with all the belle lettre associations and imitations of Russian classics. I think they're making a movie based on a number of his books now.