An inspiring evening with renowned US-based poet, writer and literary scholar Julia Nemirovskaya, featuring readings, and discussions on Moscow’s New Wave poets, as well as reflections on the creative process, and an audience Q&A.

Julia teaches and directs student theater at the University of Oregon (UO), and will be visiting Cambridge from the United States.

Boris Dralyuk, a distinguished writer, editor, and translator, has offered profound insights into Julia Nemirovskaya’s poetry.

“The moment I first encountered the poems of Julia Nemirovskaya, I felt I had acquired a magical mirror – a mirror that promised to reveal, with striking clarity, traits of my own personality that I had barely glimpsed before. I saw a version of myself in her lyrics and heard a version of my voice; but the self was brighter and better, the voice gentler yet surer than the one I was used to. After a decade of living with Julia’s poems, I have come to appreciate the degree to which the process of translating them has helped me become that better self and find that surer voice… I hope my translations will do the same for other readers.”

When: Friday 21 February 2025 19:00-21:00 (doors at 18:30)
Where: Main Lecture Theatre, Trinity Hall, Trinity Lane, Cambridge CB2 1TJ
Language: English with some poetry read in original Russian
Format: in person and online via Zoom
Tickets in person: £8 standard / £5 CamRuSS members & concessions;
Zoom: £5 standard, free for CamRuSS members & students.
Access to video recording: free for CamRuSS members, £5 for others, incl. students.
Please book via AllEvents
This event will be followed by drinks reception.

Julia Nemirovskaya

Julia Nemirovskaya is a poet, prose writer, and literary scholar. She graduated from Moscow State University, where she defended her Ph.D. dissertation in 1991. Before emigrating to the United States that same year, she was a member of the renowned Kirill Kovaldzhi “New Wave Poets” seminar and the Moscow Poetry Club.

She has published four collections of poetry and short stories, a novel, and a book on Russian cultural history, Inside the Russian Soul: A Historical Survey of Russian Cultural Patterns (McGraw-Hill, 1997, 2001). Her work has appeared in Asymptote, GLAS, Literary Review, Znamya, LRS-Lettres Russes, Bonniers Litterära Magasin, and other publications. Her writings have been translated into several European languages. Additionally, her 26 plays have been staged in theatres across Russia, the United States, Germany, and France.

A mother of three, she resides in the United States, frequently travels to her youngest child’s native Ethiopia, and teaches Russian literature while directing student theatre productions at the University of Oregon.

A selection of recordings, publications, articles, and interviews featuring Julia Nemirovskaya:

• CamRuSS, “Anti-War Poetry Evening,” 2023
• Boris Dralyuk reads Julia Nemirovskaya’s poetry in Translators Aloud:
• East-West Literary Forum: Julia Nemirovskaya’s “Mariupol Tram” / Translated by Niles Watterson
• In Asymptote: on “The Little Books by Nemirovskaya’s,” by Boris Dralyuk
• “Words That Realized for the First Time They Were Poems”: On the 70th Anniversary of Ivan Akhmetyev (in Russian)
• No War Poetry, KRiK Publishing House, 2022 
• “When the War Started, I Was Distraught” by Greg Freeman (23 December 2022)
• Robert Chandler, “Poets Against Putin: A Review of Disbelief: 100 Russian Anti-War Poems”, edited by Julia Nemirovskaya. Literary Review.

Books

• Inside the Russian Soul: A Historical Survey of Russian Cultural Patterns, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997, 551 pp.; 2nd Revised Edition, 2001, 632 pp. 
• Moia knizhechka, A Collection of Verses. A & B Publishers, Moscow, 1998. 
• Vtoraia knizhechka, A Collection of Verses. Vodolei Publishers, Moscow, 2014. 
• Lis, A Novel. Vodolei Publishers, Moscow, 2017. 
• Slyshnee, Complete Works, Poetry. Vodolei Publishers, Moscow, 2021. 
• Tela Net, Complete Prose Works. Vodolei Publishers, Moscow, 2021. 
• Disbelief: 100 Anti-War Poets, Ed. by Julia Nemirovskaya. Smokestack Books, London, 2022. 
• Dislocation: An Anthology of Poetic Response to Russia’s War in Ukraine, Ed. by Julia Nemirovskaya and Anna Krushelnitskaya. Slavica Publishers, Indiana University, 2024.