An Interview With Mikhail Shishkin
Mikhail Shishkin made his literary debut in 1993 and swiftly went on to win acclaim as one of the greatest living contemporary Russian writers. He is the first author to win all th
Eine Kleine Rammsteinmusik
Daniel Kalder praises some German originals who seem to have sprung fully-formed from the head of Wotan. I first encountered Rammstein in an almost empty cinema on Glasgow’s Buch
Legends of Russian Rock
Today we enjoy some samples from around about 4000 years of Russian rock. What it lacks in groove it makes up for in lyrical folkiness… Among the titans of Russian rock, few are
Book Review: Maidenhair
Russia has one of the world’s great literary traditions, which for many is defined by bearded sages who write philosophically and morally committed mega-tomes. Aleksandr Solzheni
Early Jodo Vs. Late Jodo
Looking for more bande dessinée lunacy? Then read on… Recently I reviewed The Incal, the epic psychedelic space opera from the all-round holy madman Alejandro Jodorows
Notes From The Underground: The Rise and Fall of Russian Literature
In Moscow, a statue of the national poet Aleksandr Pushkin stands at the heart of the city, mere minutes’ walk from a monument to Feodor Dostoevsky. Metro stations carry writersâ
Book Review: ‘In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire’ examines the roots of Islam
Since the 1990s, when Islamic extremism replaced the Soviet Union as the main geopolitical foe of the West, there has been an explosion in publishing about Islam. Some of those boo
Pussy Riot and Russian “Art Protest”
In April a shitty punk band with the excellent name of Pussy Riot attained worldwide fame by performing their less than awesome track “Holy Shit†inside Moscow’s Church of Ch
Russian Author Dmitri Kosyrev, aka Master Chen, on His Asian Alter-ego
MOSCOW: Russia’s Dmitri Kosyrev is a journalist and has written primarily about Asia for such publications as Pravda, Independent Newspaper, and New Newspaper. He also occasional
Yale U. Press Digitizes Stalin’s Massive Personal Archive
Over the last two years Yale University Press and the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History have been quietly digitizing Stalin’s personal archive, consisting of
The Incal
There comes a point in every individual’s lifetime when he or she must face the inevitable question: should I read a 307 page mystical- psychedelic Chilean-French science fiction
Review: Whispers in the Walls and Pandemonium
My interest in comics ebbs and flows. So much that is published is embarrassingly bad, but I still love the medium, and so I want there to be books that are good. English language
The Post-Moebius Upholders of a Proud French Comic Book Tradition
In March, Jean “Moebius” Giraud died. This was a sad day for comic readers as Giraud was probably the finest artist ever to work in the medium. He could draw
China City Stories: an interview with Ra Page
Despite its rise China remains an enigma for many in the West. As fiction can provide a way to get under a culture’s skin—the short story doing so in immediate and concentrated
Meet The Toughest Clerics Who Ever Lived
Daniel Kalder says that St Ignatius set a high standard when a cannonball tore open his leg Early Christian practice emphasised asceticism and poverty, but the idea of radical wi
When Writers Censor Themselves
The suppression of literature is an ancient tradition that probably started with the invention of writing and which thrives today all over the world. In the west we generally vener
PP Appreciation: Ex-Marvel Man, Pariah, Blogger Jim Shooter
Is the best blog in publishing written by a 60 year-old former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics? I think so. Though he may not be a household name, in the world of comics Jim Shoot
Red Plenty Book Review
While the “Russia†shelves of American bookstores groan under the weight of heavy tomes on the horrors of Stalin and the Gulag, the relatively liberal period that followed has
One-Armed Gunslingers and Germans in Teepees: A Brief Guide to the Euro-Western
The Western is the quintessentially American genre. However played out it might seem at times, it offers an incredibly versatile context for near-mythic narratives about good and e
Review: Sandcastle and Robot
The other day I was watching a Channel 4 news segment about the now ubiquitous “occupy†facemasks, in which they dragged around the aged hippy & magician Alan Moore, introd
The Secret Afterlife of Roy Orbison
Had he lived, Roy Orbison would have been 75 this year. Here, Daniel Kalder writes about the Big O’s transcendental power… For me, like most people, memory is intricately inter
Explaining Philip K. Dick’s Exegesis
The private papers documenting his cosmic illumination by a pink laser have long gilded the PKD legend. Published at last, do they shed much light for the rest of us? Philip K Dick
Mr Blair Goes to Kazakhstan
Ah, Tony Blair—you can’t keep a good hustler down. One minute he’s singing the praises of formaldehyde at the opening of a methanol power plant in Azerbaijan (£90,000 for a
Storytelling is a Deadly Business: Krzhizhanovsky’s “The Letter Killers’ Club”
Anyone who has ever strolled into a Barnes & Noble and felt a certain despair at the sight of all those books lying on tables and shelves, many of them not very good, all of th