It’s been a busy January so far for RusTrans, getting our website and initial research plans off the ground while preparing for PhD recruitment. We’re starting work on our first two case studies, Pushkin in Grafton Street (Dr Maguire) and David Magarshack and Penguin Books (Dr McAteer). We’ll continue posting research updates and other breaking translation news on this blog. For now, I’ll sign off with the exciting news that one of my favourite recent Russian novels, Evgenii Vodolazkin’s The Aviator (translated by Lisa Hayden) has just been longlisted for the prestigious EBRD Literature Prize, now entering its second year. Last year a very different Russian author, Boris Akunin’s All The World’s A Stage translated by Andrew Bromfield, made the prize shortlist; let’s hope Russia has even better luck in 2019. The winner will be announced on March 7.

To explain why I admire The Aviator so much, here’s a recent Guardian review of the novel by Simon Ings, and if you want a longer read, here’s one I wrote earlier.