The National Archives mark their 155th Anniversary and Black History Month with display and Overlook author event

--> The National Archives Museum will display the Emancipation Proclamation, February 17-19th, and host a reading of THE GREAT STAIN by Noel Rae on February 22nd to mark their 155th Anniversary and Black History Month. To see the full month of programs, visit here!

There have been numerous books about slavery in America, but there is a dearth of material exposing what slavery was actually like. In THE GREAT STAIN, author Noel Rae provides first- hand accounts from former slaves, slave owners, and even African slavers. A book signing will follow Noel Rae's reading that will stream on YouTube.

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES MUSEUM

February 22, 2018

12:00 PM EDT

William G. McGowan Theater

Constitution Avenue at 9th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20408 

Forgiveness 4 You

Ann Bauer’s Forgiveness 4 You is a compassionate story that shows a different perspective on the universal desire to be loved and accepted. In this sharply satirical novel, advertising executive Madeline Murray sees a big moneymaking opportunity in the form of Gabriel McKenna, a former priest who still receives confession—despite having left the church and settling into a new life working at a bookstore.

Once Madeline convinces the reluctant Gabriel to be the face of Forgiveness 4 You, a secular forgiveness-for-hire company, the two explore the well-meaning but corruptible world of commercializing religion. They form a close bond as each acts as both confessor and forgiver. What they learn, ultimately, is the cost of redemption and what price people are willing to pay for it. Ann Bauer 
delivers a poignant but not sentimental, satirical but not mean-spirited, and ultimately honest look at religion and redemption.           

In addition to writing fiction, Ann is a frequent essayist and contributor to websites including most recently DAME, Huffington Post, Salon, and Slate. Her essays address issues that she has dealt with in her daily life, focusing on a wide array of topics ranging from parenting to careers. 

Click below to read some of her recent essays:

Featured in DAME, “Are the Virtues of Higher Education a Lesson in False Advertising?”

Features in Huffington Post, "Finding Forgiveness in a Church-Free World"

Featured in Salon, "'Sponsered' by my husband: Why it's a problem that writers never talk about where their money comes from"

Featured in Slate, “My Life with Anti-Vaxxers”

Forgiveness 4 You is available now.

MY FELLOW PRISONERS

December 20, 2013 marked the release of one of Russia’s most notable political prisoners. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was given a presidential pardon and quickly moved to serve as an advocate for civil society in Russia through his foundation, Open Russia.  Since his release he has raised awareness of Russia’s perilous economic state as well as speaking out against President Putin. Khodorkovsky has put pen to paper and written the newly released My Fellow Prisoners, a memoir that addresses corruption in the penal system of Russia. After being wrongfully incarcerated for 10 years for charges of tax evasion, Khodorkovsky has become resolute in bringing to light the prisoner’s plight.

In his memoir, he addresses the issue of the skewed scale of justice; his anecdotes not only touch upon the lives of fellow prisoners but also the guards of the system and the prison society they create and help foster. Many hold the belief that his arrest was more politically motivated than anything else. Seen as a figure with growing strength in opposition of Putin’s personal agenda, plenty currently look to him to bridge the growing gap between the governing body of Russia and his fellow countrymen.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky has held various interviews with media outlets where one can discern what his intentions for his future as a free man will be. His most recent meeting with The Guardian offers advice even the non-persecuted should bear in mind, “Prison taught me that time does not have as much significance as we think. Just because something didn’t happen today doesn’t mean it won’t happen tomorrow.” There is no doubt that Khodorkovsky is a man with a plan filled with enough vigor for life that he will actualize them to the best of his ability. An article published by the Financial Times discloses that he holds a personal responsibility to Russia and is willing to take the mantle of “crisis manager” as an interim president of sorts in order to see a gradual change in the political environment.  Moreover, in an interview with Bloomberg, Khodorkovsky presents an option for the ruling power of Russia to cede power in order to ensure both sides safely continue to exist-- thus preventing either one from wreaking havoc on the other.

My Fellow Prisoners is available now.

RIGHT OF BOOM: THE AFTERMATH OF NUCLEAR TERRORISM

ON SALE NOW: RIGHT OF BOOM by Benjamin E. Schwartz

With New Year’s resolutions being set there is a global determination to rearrange priorities.  Gym memberships are being filled out, diet goals are imposed, and many are seeking to amend battered bank accounts. With all of these personal boosts of morale happening in cities across the nation it begs the question how will our nation face the New Year?  During this turbulent time of political strife and threats of impending conflict with adversarial nations someone needs to ask the hard questions. 

Benjamin Schwartz’s Right of Boom is hitting bookshelves January 22^nd and boy does it pack a punch. Mr. Schwartz has held a number of high-level positions within the American government involving national security and countering WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction). His first novel delves in the not-so hypothetical world where United States prepares itself for a swift and succinct response to nuclear attacks or, even, countries that exhibit inklings of preparing the groundwork for nuclear warfare. In what is still considered fairly murky waters, Benjamin Schwartz succeeds in writing a lucid narrative that has you gripping the edge of your seat. The underpinnings of the text are not solely theoretical—he captures historical moments that have scarred the world, which in turn gives credence to his toil in the Right of Boom.

Join the author at Kramerbooks in Washington DC to celebrate the launch of Right of Boom

Kramerbooks & Afterwords  WASHINGTON, D.C.

6:30 PM,  Tuesday, January 27, 2015

1517 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036

Russian Literature Week 2014

In 2002, The Overlook Press acquired Ardis, a company specializing in translations of Russian Literature, and we have since been committed to making the great Russian masterpieces—both classic and contemporary—available in the English language. We celebrate these works every day, but we are excited to dedicate this week to honor them through this year's Russian Literature Week! 

The Russian Literature Week is an annual celebration of the translation of classic and contemporary Russian literature into English. From December 1 to 5, a series of live and online events and publications praise the work of the best Russian writers and their translators. In the spirit of the festivities, we remember some of our most notable Russian translation titles. 






Ellendea Proffer's major biography of Mikhail Bulgakov, the most widely adored and critically acclaimed writer of the Soviet era. With a dual emphasis on history and criticism, BULGAKOV: LIFE AND WORK, Proffer’s book is a unique and essential work—a gift both to students of literary history and to fans of Bulgakov who simply want a closer look at the man who gave the world The Master and Margarita.

A bestselling sensation in Russia, where it was called “the most significant cultural event of the year,” Lilianna Lungina's  memoir WORD FOR WORD is nothing less than the story of a nation’s literary conscience—the history of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of a single person. A Russian Jew, Lungina's story is the testimony of a World War II exile and a witness of the era's upheavals, all told from the very center of Soviet cultural life.

  

Praised by The New York Times Book Review as “an Abkhazian Mark Twain,” Fazil Iskander was one of the most acclaimed writers in the Soviet Union—and also one of the funniest. In RABBITS AND BOA CONSTRICTORS, translated from the Russian by Ronald E. Peterson, Iskander tells the story of a struggle between . . . well, rabbits and boa constrictors, which is really a struggle between the manipulators and the manipulated as they try to function in a failed utopia. 

Brilliantly translated by Matvei Yankelevich, TODAY I WROTE NOTHING  is a comprehensive collection of the prose and poetry of Daniil Kharms, a writer who has long been heralded as one of the most iconoclastic authors of the Soviet era. TODAY I WROTE NOTHING includes dozens of short prose pieces, plays, and poems long admired in Russia, but never before available in English.

Originally published in 1930, Gaito Gazdanov’s AN EVENING WITH CLAIRE is a masterpiece of Russian émigré literature. Written when its author was just twenty-six—with the memories of his harsh years in the Russian civil war still hauntingly vivid in his mind—AN EVENING WITH CLAIRE is a psychological novel that is both grand and introspective. Gazdanov’s fist novel is at once an intimate and sensual account of a young man’s coming-of-age, and a tribute to the shattered dreams of the early twentieth century.

RED SPECTRES, a rare collection of gothic literature from Russia's twentieth century, includes eleven vintage tales by seven writers of the period: Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Aleksandr Grin and Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, the lesser known but seminal figure Aleksandr Chayanov, whose story "Venediktov" influenced Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, and the émigrés Georgy Peskov and Pavel Perov. Selected and translated form Russian by Muireann Maguire, RED SPECTRES conveys through the traditional gothic repertoire of ghosts, insanity, obsession, retribution and terror, the turbulence and dissonance of life in Russia.

Coinciding with the 75^th anniversary of his death, Vladislav Khodasevich's classical precision and solitary voice are resurrected for a new generation of readers in SELECTED POEMS, a new bilingual anthology offering the English-speaking world the first substantial selection of his verse, translated by Peter Daniels and featuring an introduction by Michael Wachtel. 

 Fyodor Dostoyevsky's THE CROCODILE is an outstanding piece of satire: It is vicious, dreamlike, scatological, and one of the funniest things that Dostoevsky ever wrote. In this brief work, translated by S. D. Cioran, he reveals his hatred of communism and socialism in an unusually direct caricature. The tongue-in-cheek "true story" follows a civil servant who suddenly gets swallowed alive by a crocodile—but he survives, carrying on his duties and preaching socialist theories from within the crocodile's belly.