Anna Aslanyan

‘We are not cattle, we’re people’: everyday hell in Stalin’s labour camps

11 August 2018 9:00 am

‘No testimony from this time must ever be forgotten,’ the great Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova says in his afterword to…

The Book of Joan: part apocalyptic tale, part erotic poem

24 February 2018 9:00 am

Does J.G. Ballard’s ‘disquieting equation’, ‘sex x technology = the future’, still hold? Not in Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel, which imagines…

Putting the boot into Italy

14 October 2017 9:00 am

A young woman, naked and covered in blood, totters numbly down a night road. A driver spots her in his…

Sexual tension and Siberian magic mushrooms

28 May 2016 9:00 am

On her arrival in Russia in 1914, Gerty Freely finds it refreshingly liberal compared to her native Britain: here servants…

Maxim Gorky’s revolutionaries are ready for martyrdom

23 January 2016 9:00 am

Maxim Gorky was trumpeted as ‘the great proletarian writer’ by Soviet critics, who considered his novel The Mother one of…

Umberto Eco really tries our patience

7 November 2015 9:00 am

Colonna, the protagonist of Umberto Eco’s latest novel, is the first to admit he is a loser. A middle-aged literary…

The road to Lolita: why Nabokov’s literary talent finally blossomed in America

22 August 2015 9:00 am

Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov’s nostalgic memoir, reflects on his life from the age of three to 41, taking us from…

Welcome to the world of Big Byz

18 July 2015 9:00 am

The title of Victor Pelevin’s 2011 novel stands for ‘Special Newsreel/Universal Feature Film’. This product is made by the narrator,…

Poster for an exhibition of Mayakovsky’s works, 1930

Both lyricist and agitator: the split personality of Vladimir Mayakovsky

21 February 2015 9:00 am

Why increase the number of suicides? Better to increase the output of ink! wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky in 1926 in response…

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Cartoons

‘There are rumours another crash could be on the way.’
‘There are rumours another crash could be on the way.’
‘Amazon would have delivered your sermon a lot quicker.’
‘Amazon would have delivered your sermon a lot quicker.’
‘Must you do your make-up on the Tube?’
‘Must you do your make-up on the Tube?’
‘All you do is binge watch.’
‘All you do is binge watch.’
‘There’s a Novichokolate on the pillow.’
‘There’s a Novichokolate on the pillow.’
‘Don’t feed the Lib Dems – it just encourages them.’
‘Don’t feed the Lib Dems – it just encourages them.’
‘Hush, hush, lower your tone,Christopher Robin is checking his phone.’
‘Hush, hush, lower your tone,Christopher Robin is checking his phone.’
‘We need to drive normal people out of politics.’
‘We need to drive normal people out of politics.’
‘There’s a 12.5 per cent surcharge for American tourists.’
‘There’s a 12.5 per cent surcharge for American tourists.’
‘The following drama contains a dissatisfying ending that cynically leaves the door open for a second series.’
‘The following drama contains a dissatisfying ending that cynically leaves the door open for a second series.’