Literature club: Alexandra Petrova, discussion of the novel Appendix

May 16, 7:30 pm

Alexandra Petrova is a writer of poetry and prose. Born in Leningrad and living in Rome since 1998, she is the author of three books of poetry — Line of Separation, Residency Permit and Only the Trees. In 2016 she made her prose début when the New Literary Observer publishing house released her 900-page novel Appendix, which won the Andrey Belov prize that same year and was shortlisted for a NOS award. The novel was to become one of the most important literary events of recent years, and follows on from the great modernist writing of the 20^th century, in particular the techniques of Leonid Dobychina (Colta.ru) whose work Petrova studied at Tartu University. Appendix is a novel about Rome, but the modern Rome, a Rome that has become the capital city for outcasts from the rest of the globe and in so doing has taken on a particular political resonance. During the evening Petrova will read extracts from Appendix and will talk about her work on the novel

Admission is free of charge. The number of participants is limited. Please register in advance.

A series of meetings for people interested in contemporary prose and poetry will include theoretical lectures on literature and book presentations as well as short poetry and prose readings. Every writer who has been invited to the literary readings is connected in some way either with St Petersburg itself or with the writing that the city inspired. In this way, one of the programme’s thematic tenets will be the interaction between the city and the text, characters and heroes of prose fiction and research works. This is further enhanced by the particular mythical richness of New Holland island, located on the border with St Petersburg’s Kolomna, the city’s most important “literary” region.

Along with the most important and influential representatives of the St Petersburg literary scene, also invited to take part are authors whose creative and research interests are connected to an extent with the reevaluation of St Petersburg’s writings, its history and mythology. Writers including Alexander Ilyanen, Alexander Skidan, Pavel Pepperstein, Alexandra Petrova, Lev Danilkin and Alexey Konakov will address the meetings’ audiences.