Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

New York is behind us

Dear readers and friends!

From the 15th to the 26th of April we were in America: New York and Boston. Here’s a small summary of our trip.

We left from Moscow, which was still covered in snow, and arrived in the blooming New York spring.

First, we had a meeting in our literary agency, TMG (Trident Media Group), which is situated in the heart of Manhattan, in a skyscraper on Madison Avenue. We discussed the perspectives of further work together.

We thank Robert Gottlieb, head of the agency (he was in England at the time, visiting a book show), for organizing this meeting. Many thanks also to the workers of TMG, Erica Silverman and John Silverback, for a warm and constructive discussion.

We arrived in Boston, where we had two meetings in Wellesley College, on the 18th of April. This is a women’s college of liberal arts, established in 1875, and is one of the most prestigious colleges in America, and is attended by over 2300 students from different countries. Many influential women such as Madeleine Albright or Hillary Clinton graduated from Wellesley. The Russian department was created in the 1940s by the famous writer and critic Vladimir Nabokov. The Russian culture is studied here in a very interesting way, in an environment of Russian society, literature, visual art, music and cinema.

The college is situated in a beautiful valley with lakes, trees, flowers and castles. Unfortunately, we are not professional photographers and were unable to capture the beauty and charm of this place, but you can feel at least a part of it.

The first two meetings were attended by students and teachers from different departments, as well as some of our readers from different cities (special thanks to Boris Warshavsky) and the theme of the discussion was Russian fantasy and science fiction literature and cinema.

On the 24th of April we hosted a master-class in the group of professor Alla Epstein. She teaches an author’s course focused on children’s literature and cinema. We showed our cartoon “The Theatrical Romance”, and the students read out stories from our book “Balloon fish”. There was a very interesting discussion, which can still be continued through the Net.

We express our gratitude to professors Alla Epstein and Thomas Hodge for a warm and hearty welcome, and a special thanks to the president of the Russian club Lena Mironciuc, who invited us to America and was our guide around the college. Lena has created some very interesting works of art, she is an expert in Russian and world culture – let’s wish her further success in her studies.

On the 19th of April we had a meeting with readers in the COOP bookshop located near Harvard. It is a special area in Boston where the student village of the most prestigious university in America and the Boston city centre collide. The bookshop itself is three stories tall and is very charming. The discussion was devoted to the presentation of the novel “Scar”. Some of the people who attended had read it in English – there were interesting questions about the novel’s philosophy, its psychological and even psychiatrical aspects. Our daughter Anastasia acted as a translator. Many thanks to the Tor publishing house, which organized this event, the employees of the bookshop and our first readers.

We are also very thankful to Julia Hersey. She moved to Boston from Moscow, where she had studied at the journalism department of MSU many years ago. She translated “Vita Nostra” to English for her husband and friends and presented us the manuscript. It has to be said, this is a unique and unforgettable gift. We had a great time with her husband, parents and kids. It’s great to know that there are people after my own heart even on the other side of the globe.

We returned to Moscow on the 26th of April, before the scheduled time, because we had a lot work waiting for us here, such as the production on a film, several screenplays and a new book, but we will never forget this journey to America.

Best wishes!

Marina and Sergey