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Visiting Russian Poets Act As Citizen Diplomats
September 25, 2008
For Immediate Release
Contact:Cassandra Hartblay
CEC ArtsLink
(212) 643-1985 x17
chartblay@cecartslink.org
Maura Shelden
Open World Leadership Center
202-707-8943
mshelden@loc.gov
Four acclaimed writers from across Russia will be visiting Washington, DC September 26-30, as part of a program to encourage cross-cultural communication through the arts. The writers include Dina Gatina, a poet, prose-writer, and graphic artist, Gennady Kanevsky, known for his rhythmic spoken word poetry, Ilya Kukulin, a prominent literary critic and poet, and Nikolai Zvyagintsev, author of four books of poetry.
The writers will present their work in Russian and in translation at a public reading on Sunday, September 28th at 7:00pm at Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave, NW (at M Street) in Georgetown. The English translations of the writers’ works will be presented by local DC area poets, curated by poet and host of the evening, Rod Smith.
The writers will arrive in Washington following a two-week residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where they will give readings, attend seminars, and participate in discussions with a variety of American literary peers, students, and faculty. In DC they will visit the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Book Festival.
This trip, which is the fourth of its kind, is sponsored by The Open World Leadership Center at the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts and administered and organized by CEC ArtsLink, a New York City-based nonprofit organization.
This will be the first trip to the United States for many of the writers, and an exciting opportunity to connect with colleagues and contemporaries in this country, share their viewpoints with an American audience, and learn more about life in the US. Dmitri Bykov, a 2005 participant in the program and the 2006 winner of the Big Book Award, Russia’s top literary honor, recalled, “Three weeks of this program helped me understand America better than living in the country for years would have.”
CEC ArtsLink, through a multi-faceted program of cultural exchange, serves to create and sustain constructive, mutually beneficial relationships in the arts between the United States and Central and Eastern Europe, Russia. Working with artists, arts organizations and community-based groups, CEC ArtsLink provides an essential structure for ongoing dialogue, contributing to a culture of openness and trust between nations.
Open World’s Cultural Leaders Program aims to forge better understanding between the United States and Russia by enabling emerging Russian leaders in the arts to experience America’s cultural and community life, and to work with their American counterparts. Support for the cultural program is provided through partnership and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts; the Open World Leadership Center funds the administrative portion of the program.
Open World is a unique, nonpartisan initiative of the U.S. Congress. Delegates range from judges to mayors, from innovative nonprofit directors to experienced journalists, and from political party activists to regional administrators. Over 10,500 Open World participants have been hosted in all 50 U.S. states since the program’s inception in 1999.
For more information and to arrange interviews with the Russian writers during their stay in Washington DC, please contact Cassandra Hartblay, at chartblay@cecartslink.org. For more background on Open World, please visithttp://www.openworld.gov. To learn more about opportunities for artists and arts organizations administered by CEC ArtsLink, please visithttp://www.cecartslink.org.
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