Mikhail Shishkin - Calligraphy Lesson

“Mikhail Shishkin is the Ian McEwan of Russia. A prize-winning writer who enjoys stunning commercial and critical success…His latest novel [ The Light and the Dark ]… is striking proof that great Russian literature didn’t die with Dostoevsky.”

“[Shishkin] manages to engage Russia’s literary heritage while at the same time creating something new and altogether original.”

“Shishkin has been described as the heir apparent of the great Russian novelists, and indeed, there are times when he seems to have taken the best from each of them.”

“As an extraordinary prose stylist, Shishkin has license to be unconventional… Maidenhair is likely a work of genius.”

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Copyright © 2015 by Mikhail Shishkin

Published by arrangement with the author and the BGS Agency.

English translation copyrights:

“Calligraphy Lesson” © 2007 by Marian Schwartz

“The Half-Belt Overcoat” © 2012 by Leo Shtutin

“Of Saucepans and Star-Showers” © 2013 by Leo Shtutin

“Nabokov’s Inkblot” © 2014 by Mariya Bashkatova

“In a Boat Scratched on a Wall,” “The Blind Musician,” and “Language Saved” © 2015 by Marian Schwartz

“The Bell Tower of San Marco” © 2015 by Sylvia Maizell

Some stories were published previously:

“The Half-Belt Overcoat” in Read Russia: An Anthology of New Voices (May 2012)

“Calligraphy Lesson” in Words Without Borders (July 2007)

“Nabokov’s Inkblot” in New England Review (Volume 34, Nos. 3–4, 2014)

“Of Saucepans and Star-Showers” in Spolia (March 2013)

“In a Boat Scratched on a Wall” originally appeared in slightly different form as “Mikhail Shishkin: A revolution for Russia’s words” in the Independent (March 22, 2013)

First edition, 2015. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-941920-02-2 (ebook)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2015935163

The publication of this book was made possible with the support of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation’s Transcript program to support the translation of Russian literature.

Cover design & typesetting by Anna Zylicz • annazylicz.com

Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.

Deep Vellum titles are published under the fiscal sponsorship of The Writer’s Garret, a nationally recognized nonprofit literary arts organization.

Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.

I.e., the completely expendable members of penal battalions, which consisted primarily of convicted military personnel, Gulag inmates, and POWs. —Trans.

Enrolling in a higher-education institution with a military chair was (and remains) a way for young males to avoid otherwise compulsory military service. —Trans.

The first and third installments, respectively, of Brezhnev’s ghostwritten memoir trilogy, for which he was awarded the Lenin Prize for Literature in 1980. —Trans.

An allusion to Solzhenitsyn’s essay “Live Not by Lies” (1974), an appeal for moral courage. —Trans.

Varlam Shalamov’s The Kolyma Tales (1978) and Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago (1973) are classics of Gulag literature. —Trans.

“Zhenya” is the diminutive of “Evgenia.”

“Verochka” is the diminutive of “Vera.”

“Mika” is the diminutive of “Mirra.”

“Alyosha” is a diminutive of “Alexei.”

“Shut up, you asshole!”

“Mitya” is the diminutive of “Dmitry.”