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Holy Winter 20/21
Maria Stepanova; Translated by Sasha Dugdale
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R368
R298
Discovery Miles 2 980
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The outbreak of Covid-19 cut short Maria Stepanova’s stay in
Cambridge. Back in Russia, she spent the ensuing months in a state
of torpor – the world had withdrawn from her, time had ‘gone
numb’. When she awoke from this state, she began to read Ovid,
and the shock of the pandemic dissolved into the voices and
metaphors of an epochal experience. Her book-length poem Holy
Winter 20/21, written in a frenzy of poetic inspiration, speaks of
winter and war, of banishment and exile, of social isolation and
existential abandonment. Stepanova finds sublime imagery for the
process of falling silent, interweaving love letters and
travelogues, Chinese verse and Danish fairy tales into a polyphonic
evocation of frozen and slowly thawing time. Following her previous
book of poetry, War of the Beasts and the Animals – in part a
response to the Donbas conflict – her book’s title is even more
prophetic now, echoing a famous patriotic Soviet song from 1941,
‘a holy war is underway’. Born in 1972, Maria Stepanova – as
poet and essayist – was a highly influential figure for many
years in Moscow’s cosmopolitan literary scene until its
suppression along with civil liberties and dissent under Putin’s
latter-day reign of terror. Her first prose work In Memory of
Memory established her internationally as one of the most important
intellectual voices of contemporary Russia. Like Joseph Brodsky
before her, she has mastered modern poetry’s rich repertoire of
forms and moves effortlessly between the linguistic and traditional
spaces of Russian, European and transatlantic literature. Her
poetry, which here echoes verses by Pushkin and Lermontov,
Mandelstam and Tsvetaeva, is not hermetic. She takes in the
confusing signals from social networks and the media, opening
herself up to the voices of kindred poets like Sylvia Plath, Inger
Christensen and Anne Carson. In her prose, Stepanova searches for
the essence of the moment in the maelstrom of historical time. As
an essayist, she traces the reactions of her critical
consciousness; taken together, her politically alert commentaries
form a chronicle of the troubled present.
With the death of her aunt, Maria Stepanova is left to sift through
an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters,
diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century
of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands,
these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish
family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and
repressions of the last century. In dialogue with writers like
Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag and Osip
Mandelstam, In Memory of Memory is imbued with rare
intellectual curiosity and a wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice.
Dipping into various forms - essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue and
historical documents - Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas
and personalities and offers an entirely new and bold exploration
of cultural and personal memory.
War of the Beasts and the Animals is Russian poet Maria Stepanova's
first full English-language collection. Stepanova is one of
Russia's most innovative and exciting poets and thinkers, and
founding editor of Colta.ru, an online independent site which has
been compared to Huffington Post in its status and importance.
IImmensely high-profile in Russia for many years, recognition in
the West has followed the publication of her documentary novel In
Memory of Memory, first in German translation in 2018 and now with
Sasha Dugdale's English translation - published by Fitzcarraldo in
the UK and by New Directions in the US - longlisted for the
International Booker Prize in 2021. War of the Beasts and the
Animals includes her recent long poems of conflict 'Spolia' and
'War of the Beasts and Animals', written during the Donbas
conflict, as well as a third long poem 'The Body Returns',
commissioned by Hay International Festival in 2018 to commemorate
the Centenary of the First World War. In all three long poems
Stepanova's assured and experimental use of form, her modernist
appropriation of poetic texts from around the world and her
constant consideration of the way that culture, memory and
contemporary life are interwoven make her work both pleasurable and
deeply necessary. This collection also includes two sequences of
poems from her 2015 collection Kireevsky: sequences of 'weird'
ballads and songs, subtly changed folk and popular songs and poems
which combine historical lyricism and a contemporary understanding
of the effects of conflict and trauma. Stepanova uses the ready
forms of ballads and songs, but alters them, so they almost appear
to be refracted in moonlit water. The forms seem recognisable, but
the words are oddly fragmented and suggestive, they weave together
well-known refrains of songs, apparently familiar images, subtle
half-nods to films and music.
Intended to update scientists and engineers on the current state
of the art in a variety of key techniques used extensively in the
fabrication of structures at the nanoscale. The present work covers
the essential technologies for creating sub 25 nm features
lithographically, depositing layers with nanometer control, and
etching patterns and structures at the nanoscale. A distinguishing
feature of this book is a focus not on extension of
microelectronics fabrication, but rather on techniques applicable
for building NEMS, biosensors, nanomaterials, photonic crystals,
and other novel devices and structures that will revolutionize
society in the coming years.
Intended to update scientists and engineers on the current state
of the art in a variety of key techniques used extensively in the
fabrication of structures at the nanoscale. The present work covers
the essential technologies for creating sub 25 nm features
lithographically, depositing layers with nanometer control, and
etching patterns and structures at the nanoscale. A distinguishing
feature of this book is a focus not on extension of
microelectronics fabrication, but rather on techniques applicable
for building NEMS, biosensors, nanomaterials, photonic crystals,
and other novel devices and structures that will revolutionize
society in the coming years.
Maria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices
of Russia's first post-Soviet literary generation. An award-winning
poet and prose writer, she has also founded a major platform for
independent journalism. Her verse blends formal mastery with a keen
ear for the evolution of spoken language. As Russia's political
climate has turned increasingly repressive, Stepanova has responded
with engaged writing that grapples with the persistence of violence
in her country's past and present. Some of her most remarkable
recent work as a poet and essayist considers the conflict in
Ukraine and the debasement of language that has always accompanied
war. The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova's
work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution.
Stepanova's poetic voice constantly sets out in search of new
bodies to inhabit, taking established forms and styles and
rendering them into something unexpected and strange. Recognizable
patterns of ballads, elegies, and war songs are transposed into a
new key, infused with foreign strains, and juxtaposed with unlikely
neighbors. As an essayist, Stepanova engages deeply with writers
who bore witness to devastation and dramatic social change, as seen
in searching pieces on W. G. Sebald, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Susan
Sontag. Including contributions from ten translators, The Voice
Over shows English-speaking readers why Stepanova is one of
Russia's most acclaimed contemporary writers.
Maria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices
of Russia's first post-Soviet literary generation. An award-winning
poet and prose writer, she has also founded a major platform for
independent journalism. Her verse blends formal mastery with a keen
ear for the evolution of spoken language. As Russia's political
climate has turned increasingly repressive, Stepanova has responded
with engaged writing that grapples with the persistence of violence
in her country's past and present. Some of her most remarkable
recent work as a poet and essayist considers the conflict in
Ukraine and the debasement of language that has always accompanied
war. The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova's
work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution.
Stepanova's poetic voice constantly sets out in search of new
bodies to inhabit, taking established forms and styles and
rendering them into something unexpected and strange. Recognizable
patterns of ballads, elegies, and war songs are transposed into a
new key, infused with foreign strains, and juxtaposed with unlikely
neighbors. As an essayist, Stepanova engages deeply with writers
who bore witness to devastation and dramatic social change, as seen
in searching pieces on W. G. Sebald, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Susan
Sontag. Including contributions from ten translators, The Voice
Over shows English-speaking readers why Stepanova is one of
Russia's most acclaimed contemporary writers.
With the death of her aunt, the narrator is left to sift through an
apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters,
diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century
of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands,
these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish
family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and
repressions of the last century. In dialogue with writers like
Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, and Osip Mandelstam, In
Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a
wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. Dipping into various
forms-essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue, and historical
documents-Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and
personalities and offers an entirely new and bold exploration of
cultural and personal memory.
With the death of her aunt, Maria Stepanova is left to sift through
an apartment full of faded photographs, old postcards, letters,
diaries, and heaps of souvenirs: a withered repository of a century
of life in Russia. Carefully reassembled with calm, steady hands,
these shards tell the story of how a seemingly ordinary Jewish
family somehow managed to survive the myriad persecutions and
repressions of the last century. In dialogue with writers like
Roland Barthes, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag and Osip Mandelstam, In
Memory of Memory is imbued with rare intellectual curiosity and a
wonderfully soft-spoken, poetic voice. Dipping into various forms -
essay, fiction, memoir, travelogue and historical documents -
Stepanova assembles a vast panorama of ideas and personalities and
offers an entirely new and bold exploration of cultural and
personal memory.
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