Meet Alisa Ganieva (via Skype)

Alisa Ganieva grew up in Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian republic of Dagestan in the Caucasus region. Her debut novella, Salam tebe, Dalgat  (Salaam to you, Dalgat), was published under a male pseudonym. It won the prestigious Debut Prize in 2009, and Ganieva revealed her true identity only at the award ceremony. Ganieva’s 2012 novel Prazdnichnaia gora was shortlisted for all three of Russia’s major literary awards and was published in English translation as The Mountain and the Wall in 2015; it was the first novel ever published in English by a Dagestani author. The novel Zhenikh i neveesta (Bride and Groom) (2015) was the runner-up for Russia’s most prestigious literary award, the Russian Booker Prize; it was published in English in 2018. Her latest novel, Oskorblennye chuvstva (Insulted Feelings), has just come (fall 2018) in Moscow. Ganieva’s novels have so far been translated into six languages. She lives in Moscow, where she works as a cultural journalist and literary critic. She is #9 on The Guardian’s 2015 list of Moscow’s brightest young talents. Her US translator, Duke’s Carol Apollonio, will moderate this informal conversation.