Writers

Maria Stepanova

Born: 1972

Quick Study: Maria Stepanova is a versatile writer of poetry and prose, including essays, who won particularly broad acclaim for her novel In Memory of Memory.

The Stepanova File: Maria Stepanova published some of her first work in the “thick” literary journal Znamya in the 1990s, establishing a literary name for herself and going on to receive, over the years, notice for a broad range of writings and cultural projects. She was one of the co-authors of the idea for a 2000 “St. Matthew Passion” musical project that featured work by contemporary composers and poets as well as motifs from Johann Sebastian Bach. Her In Memory of Memory, a meditative novel about history, family, and, yes, memory, won Big Book, Yasnaya Polyana, and NOSE prizes during the 2018-2019 award season.

Psssst………: Stepanova was head editor on the Openspace.ru site (now defunct) for many years and is now head editor on the Colta.ru site, which reworks the Openspace site; both resources have served as important respositories of Russian-language information about literature and culture…

Stepanova’s Places: Born in Moscow… Berlin, where she is a guest professor…

Stepanova on Stepanova & Writing: During a discussion of memory and writing with Sergei Lebedev on Radio Liberty, moderated by Elena Fanailova, Stepanova said this when asked what she’d learned while researching her family history, “Basically, when you start writing, start thinking about the dead, you start making attempts to cultivate something from those several documents – threads and buds – and there’s one very serious temptation it’s almost impossible not to fall for. I’m not sure I didn’t fall for it. It’s a writerly temptation or, more likely, an inheritor’s permissiveness, that this is all mine, this is my material, they’ve all died, and only I can look after them; I have such noble goals and the best of intentions, therefore I have the right, as it’s called in the Bible, to uncover the nakedness of your father, to show their faces, quote their letters, make them visible without caring if they would have wanted that or not. That’s a very important topic for me and I think a lot about how the dead are people, just as you and I are, meaning they have their rights that must be honored and respected.”

The Word on Stepanova: Writing for Meduza, reviewer Galina Yuzefovich called In Memory of Memory “the best Russian prose of the year [2017] (and, perhaps not just this year),” saying the book came about thanks to “that natural desire that’s carried through all of life: to rescue and save, to tell about one’s kin who appear unremarkable against the backdrop of large[r] history.”

Stepanova on Stepanova & Writing: During a discussion of memory and writing with Sergei Lebedev on Radio Liberty, moderated by Elena Fanailova, Stepanova said this when asked what she’d learned while researching her family history, “Basically, when you start writing, start thinking about the dead, you start making attempts to cultivate something from those several documents – threads and buds – and there’s one very serious temptation it’s almost impossible not to fall for. I’m not sure I didn’t fall for it. It’s a writerly temptation or, more likely, an inheritor’s permissiveness, that this is all mine, this is my material, they’ve all died, and only I can look after them; I have such noble goals and the best of intentions, therefore I have the right, as it’s called in the Bible, to uncover my father’s nakedness, to show their faces, quote their letters, make them visible without caring if they would have wanted that or not. That’s a very important topic for me and I think a lot about how the dead are people, just as you and I are, meaning they have their rights which must be honored and respected.”

Stepanova Recommends: Wonderzine’s detailed piece listing Stepanova’s favorite books include such volumes as Sebald’s Austerlitz; correspondence between Pasternak and Tsvetaeva; Patricia Highsmith’s A Game for the Living; book illustrator Alisa Poret’s volume of notes, drawings, and reminiscences; Mikhail Kuzmin’s poetry collection The Guide; and Marianne Hirsch’s The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust.

 

 

 

Photo: Andrei Natotsinsky


More on Stepanova


Major Awards & Nominations

  • In Memory of Memory – winner, Big Book Award, 2018; winner NOSE Award (jury), 2018-1019; special reader prize, Yasnaya Polyana Award, 2018; „Brücke Berlin“ award for Olga Radetzkaja's translation into German (Nach dem Gedächtnis) 2020

 

Other Selected Works

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Translations

  • In Memory of Memory, translated by Sasha Dugdale; New Directions (US), Fitzcarraldo (UK), 2021 (prose)
  • War of the Beasts and the Animals, translated by Sasha Dugdale; Bloodaxe Books, 2021 (poetry)
  • The Voice Over, edited by Irina Shevelenko; Russian Library/Columbia University Press, 2021 (poetry and essays)
     

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