Reading and Talk with Vladimir Kozlov and Alina Simone

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013 at 7:00 p.m.
The Gallery at (le) Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker Street 

Presented by Read Russia

Please RSVP

From the beatniks to the riot grrrls, alternative youth culture has shaped the minds of several successive generations and, in many cases, profoundly affected the mainstream cultural, social and political landscape of its time. On April 10^th, we invite you to join us in exploring the historical and present-day impact of youth culture in Russia and the US at an intimate evening with Russian author Vladimir Kozlov and Brooklyn-based singer and writer Alina Simone. Kozlov and Simone will read from their work and share their take on everything from emo to Soviet underground rock to radical art collectives such as Voina and Pussy Riot. The conversation, which will take place in English, will be moderated by Jeff Parker, co-editor of Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia. 

Vladimir Kozlov was born in 1972 in Mogilev, an industrial city in the eastern part of what was then the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, and spent his childhood and adolescence in the suburbs of that city, witnessing the collapse of the Soviet empire and the advent of post-Soviet “wild” capitalism. Kozlov is the author of a dozen books of prose and non-fiction, including Gopniki (“Hoods”) (2002), SSSR (“USSR”) (2009, long-listed for the Big Book Prize), and Domoy (“The Return”) (2010, long-listed for the National Bestseller Award). His non-fiction books include Realnaya Kultura ("True Culture") (2008), Fanaty ("Soccer Fans") (2008) and Emo (2007). Two of Kozlov’s books have been published in French translation, and several short stories have been published in English in US literary journals and in the anthology Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia (Tin House Books, 2009).

Alina Simone was born in Kharkov, Ukraine and came to the United States as the daughter of political refugees (her father was blacklisted by the KGB). Her 2008 album, “Everyone is Crying Out to Me, Beware,” which covered the music of Siberian punk-folk singer Yanka Dyagileva, received widespread critical acclaim from such outlets as BBC's "The World," NPR, Spin, Billboard, The New Yorker, and the Wall Street Journal. Simone is the author of the collection of personal essays You Must Go and Win (Faber & Faber, 2011) and the forthcoming novel Note to Self.  Best-selling author Neil Gaiman describes You Must Go and Win as “music, religion, Russia and family conjured and dissected with warm humor and sharp eyes.”

Jeff Parker is the author of Ovenman and The Taste of Penny. His nonfiction book Igor in Crisis: A Russia Journal is forthcoming from Harper Collins, and with Mikhail Iossel he co-edited the anthologies Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia and Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States. For many years he was the Program Director of the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia, program, and he taught creative writing for a year at the Russian State University for the Humanities as a Fulbright Scholar. Currently he is the Director of the DISQUIET International Program in Lisbon, Portugal, and he will join the faculty of the MFA in creative writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in the fall.