Olga Slavnikova Любовь в седмом вагоне - Lyubov v sedmom vagone Love in the 7th compartment – Liebe im siebten Waggon Short stories. AST, Moscow 2008, 285 pages 4 stories in English translation available     2017 Novel. Vagrius, Moscow 2006, 450 pages First chapter published in the journal Subtropics, USA 2007 Congratulations to Marian Schwartz who received a 2007 grant by National Endowment of the Arts to support the translation from Russian of Olga Slavnikova's novel, 2017. Why do a man and woman always arrange the place and time of their next rendezvous after their assignation? If they miss each other they will never see one another again. Why does a respectable professor secretly set off on a perilous journey to the mountains every year? Why does he then disappear without a trace? What spirits does Krylov, the main hero and an underground polisher of precious stones, encounter during his quest for the absolute clarity of the stones? What game is his mistress, the professor’s wife, playing? Is it purely human jealousy or is the mother of the copper mountains involved, she who is the stuff of myth and legend in the Urals? Slavnikova’s latest novel is set in a large town in the Ural Mountains, against the background of the illegal precious stones business. For those who dare to venture into the mountains to go digging, the world of the legendary mountain spirits becomes reality. But they are used to the risks and know that they cannot trust anyone – not even their nearest and dearest. In the meantime the year 2017 is approaching and the town square is being set up to mark the 100 year anniversary of the October revolution. The fancy dress show descends into severe chaos, however.     Бессмертный - Bessmertny The Immortal Novel. 2001, ca. 250 pages Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 and National Bestseller 2002 Gallimard France, Einaudi Italy A bed ridden Soviet veteran is being looked after by his wife and daughter. Long may he live, the family is surviving on his pension. The two women create a virtual world for him in his room, cut him off from all sources of information and play him news-broadcasts reporting on the latest communist party conferences recorded on video. All this to convince the old man of the continued existence of his beloved Soviet Union. The women, however, succumb to their own self deception. All the old man wants - is to finally die. Two generations in an absurdly comical and tragic vicious circle. Is there a way out? Slavnikova offers no complete solution and makes no judgment. Rather she composes a family story with a stylistic sensitivity for both sides that mirrors the disruption of today's Russian society. The third big novel, from this authoress from the Urals, that became famous overnight in the Russian literary scene, as her recondite psychological thriller "Strekoza" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. From O. Slavnikova’s Preface to the French edition by Gallimard: "This is no Good bye Lenin clone which you have in front of you. The novel Bessmertny is a fundamentally different product. The book begins where the film ends... to readers looking for similarities between to the book and the film, I say "Good Luck". To those who really want to read the book, however, I say: "Welcome to Russia", a country which we Russian writers love with such a strange and completely irrational love.