In his letter, the 52-year-old wrote of his decision to withdraw from Book Expo America, a major international literary event. In the wake of a letter written to the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications in March, Shishkin has fallen from favour. Until March, Shishkin was a much-vaunted jewel in Russia’s literary crown: a contemporary author who had scooped all three of the country’s main literature prizes, including the Russian Booker, and one who was worthy of comparison to such writers as Vladimir Nabokov and James Joyce. His steely blue eyes take on a more gentle hue. Once satisfied with my answers, he softens. Shishkin, who is in London to promote a book, is on the defensive following a tense few weeks, during which time he has been denounced as a traitor, held up as a hero, and everything in between. Although disconcerting, the grilling I receive comes as no surprise. I’m inundated with questions about The Calvert Journal, about how it’s funded and where its political affiliations lie.
My interview with Mikhail Shishkin, hailed by many as Russia’s greatest living writer, gets off to a bumpy start.
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