Living Pictures

An innovative, kaleidoscopic literary work about the siege of Leningrad and its aftermath by one of Russia's most acclaimed contemporary writers

'A precise, tremendous and beautiful book' Maria Stepanova, author of In Memory of Memory

Growing up in Leningrad, Polina Barskova saw no trace of the estimated million people who died in the city during the Nazi blockade of 1941-44. As one of Russia's most admired and controversial contemporary writers, she has repeatedly returned to the archive of texts still being recovered from the siege, finding creative ways to commemorate these ghosts from her home city's past.

A chorus of their voices and stories appears in Living Pictures, a breathtakingly inventive literary collage of memoir, archival material and fiction. With blazing immediacy and wit, Barskova delves into traumas historical and personal, writing of memories from a Soviet childhood, her foundational relationships and losses, and a life spent excavating vital fragments from under Leningrad's official history. Ending with a stunning chamber drama about two real people who died while sheltering in the Hermitage Museum during the siege, this is a rich, polyphonic work of living history.



Polina Barskova, born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1976, is one of the most celebrated contemporary Russian writers. She studied Classical Philology in Saint Petersburg, Slavic Studies in Berkeley and teaches at Hampshire College in Amherst. In addition to her extensive poetic oeuvre - eight volumes since 1991 - she is a literary scholar and editor dedicated to the poets of the Leningrad blockade. Living Picture is her first volume of prose and was awarded the prestigious Andrei Bely Prize.