Description
The writer M has lived in the city of B ever since her homeland declared war on a neighboring state. Exiled, she is unable to write there and suffers from loneliness, shame, and despair, but then M is invited to give a reading at a literary festival in a nearby country. After a series of missed connections and mishaps, including losing her phone, she finds herself all alone in the wrong coastal town, befriending a local man and attending the circus... In this brief interlude, severed from reality, it seems as if M may finally escape from herself, from her past, from her nationality. She could start all over from scratch and join the circus. Written in Maria Stepanova's rich and hypnotic prose, The Disappearing Act oscillates between reality and dream, between an oppressive present and a lost past, between life and literature.
About the Author
Poet, novelist, essayist, and journalist, Maria Stepanova is the author of ten poetry collections and three books of essays. Her poetry collections Holy Winter 20/21 and War of the Beasts and the Animals were Poetry Book Society Translation Choices and winners of PEN Translates awards, and War of the Beasts and the Animals was also shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2021. Her novel In Memory of Memory won Russia's Big Book Award in 2018 and was published in English in Sasha Dugdale's translation. She was awarded the Berman Literature Prize for In Memory of Memory, and was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Maria Stepanova has received several Russian and international literary awards (including the prestigious Andrey Bely Prize and Joseph Brodsky Fellowship). In 2022 she was awarded the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2023 for a book of poetry, Madchen ohne Kleider (Girls Without Clothes). She founded and was editor-in-chief of the online independent crowd-sourced journal Colta.ru, which engaged with the cultural, social and political reality of contemporary Russia until the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine when all dissenting media in Russia were forced to shut down. As a prominent critic of Putin's regime, she had to leave Russia and is now living in exile. Sasha Dugdale is a poet and translator. Her sixth book of poetry is The Strongbox, published by Carcanet (UK) in 2024. Deformations (2020) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot and Derek Walcott Prizes. Her long poem "Joy" won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem of 2016. Dugdale's translation of Maria Stepanova's prose work In Memory of Memory was shortlisted for the International Booker and won the MLA Lois Roth Award. She has translated two of Stepanova's poetry collections and work by a number of Russian-language women poets, including Elena Shvarts and Marina Tsvetaeva. For many years she specialized in translating Russian-language new writing for theaters in the UK and US, including the New York Public Theater and the UK's Royal Court Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company.
Reviews
"Stepanova's prose work is discursive, expansively imaginative in its musings and digressions. The translation by Dugdale is lucid, vivid and fluid." -- Barbara Conaty - Library Journal
"Captivating and capacious... The novel comes across as an urgent call to resist complacency and recover one's vitality in the face of injustice. It's a stunner." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The Disappearing Act is a witty, unsettling and profound reflection on belonging and estrangement." -- Abdulrazak Gurnah
"Poignant, ironizing its own ironies, as M finds two wrongs-any number of wrongs-never make a right."" -- Michael Autrey - Booklist
"This is an intimate and profound study of liminality and identity from one of the most important writers of our time." -- Pierce Alquist - Book Riot
"Dugdale's translation is a loving one, beautifully rendering Stepanova's melodic and rhythmic prose into precise English... With The Disappearing Act, Stepanova's talents have grown to include a magical quality, and it leaves me longing for more of her tricks." -- Olga Ziberbourg - On the Seawall
Book Information
ISBN 9780811239400
Author Maria Stepanova
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
About the Author
Poet, novelist, essayist, and journalist, Maria Stepanova is the author of ten poetry collections and three books of essays. Her poetry collections Holy Winter 20/21 and War of the Beasts and the Animals were Poetry Book Society Translation Choices and winners of PEN Translates awards, and War of the Beasts and the Animals was also shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2021. Her novel In Memory of Memory won Russia's Big Book Award in 2018 and was published in English in Sasha Dugdale's translation. She was awarded the Berman Literature Prize for In Memory of Memory, and was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Maria Stepanova has received several Russian and international literary awards (including the prestigious Andrey Bely Prize and Joseph Brodsky Fellowship). In 2022 she was awarded the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2023 for a book of poetry, Madchen ohne Kleider (Girls Without Clothes). She founded and was editor-in-chief of the online independent crowd-sourced journal Colta.ru, which engaged with the cultural, social and political reality of contemporary Russia until the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine when all dissenting media in Russia were forced to shut down. As a prominent critic of Putin's regime, she had to leave Russia and is now living in exile. Sasha Dugdale is a poet and translator. Her sixth book of poetry is The Strongbox, published by Carcanet (UK) in 2024. Deformations (2020) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot and Derek Walcott Prizes. Her long poem "Joy" won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem of 2016. Dugdale's translation of Maria Stepanova's prose work In Memory of Memory was shortlisted for the International Booker and won the MLA Lois Roth Award. She has translated two of Stepanova's poetry collections and work by a number of Russian-language women poets, including Elena Shvarts and Marina Tsvetaeva. For many years she specialized in translating Russian-language new writing for theaters in the UK and US, including the New York Public Theater and the UK's Royal Court Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company.
Reviews
"Stepanova's prose work is discursive, expansively imaginative in its musings and digressions. The translation by Dugdale is lucid, vivid and fluid." -- Barbara Conaty - Library Journal
"Captivating and capacious... The novel comes across as an urgent call to resist complacency and recover one's vitality in the face of injustice. It's a stunner." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The Disappearing Act is a witty, unsettling and profound reflection on belonging and estrangement." -- Abdulrazak Gurnah
"Poignant, ironizing its own ironies, as M finds two wrongs-any number of wrongs-never make a right."" -- Michael Autrey - Booklist
"This is an intimate and profound study of liminality and identity from one of the most important writers of our time." -- Pierce Alquist - Book Riot
"Dugdale's translation is a loving one, beautifully rendering Stepanova's melodic and rhythmic prose into precise English... With The Disappearing Act, Stepanova's talents have grown to include a magical quality, and it leaves me longing for more of her tricks." -- Olga Ziberbourg - On the Seawall
Book Information
ISBN 9780811239400
Author Maria Stepanova
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
