Holy Winter 20/21
Original Russian title: Священная зима 20/21, published in 2021 by Novoe
Rights sold to:
USA & Canada (New Directions), UK & Commonwealth (Bloodaxe), Italy (Bompiani), Sweden (Nirstedt/litteratur)
Holy Winter 20/21 / Winterpoem 20/21
Original Russian title: Священная зима 20/21, published in 2021 by Novoe
The new outstanding work by the internationally acclaimed author of In Memory of Memory, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and winner of a Prix du Meilleur livre étranger
Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2023
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic cut short Maria Stepanova’s stay in Cambridge, UK, in March 2020. Back in Russia, she spent the ensuing months in a state of torpor – the world had withdrawn from her, time had »gone numb«. When she awoke from this state, she began to read Ovid and the shock of the pandemic dissolved into the voices and metaphors of an epochal experience. Motifs that had waited within her for a long time found each other. As in The Body...
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The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic cut short Maria Stepanova’s stay in Cambridge, UK, in March 2020. Back in Russia, she spent the ensuing months in a state of torpor – the world had withdrawn from her, time had »gone numb«. When she awoke from this state, she began to read Ovid and the shock of the pandemic dissolved into the voices and metaphors of an epochal experience. Motifs that had waited within her for a long time found each other. As in The Body Returns, she transforms historic and current cataclysms into an incredibly delicate, flexible construct of rhythms and voices.
The poem, which was written in a frenzy of poetic inspiration, speaks of winter and war, of banishment and exile, of social isolation and existential abandonment. Stepanova finds sublime imagery for the process of falling silent: words that we call out to each other freezing in the air, for instance, and no longer reaching our interlocutor. The work interweaves love letters and travelogues, Chinese verse and Danish fairy tales into a polyphonic evocation of frozen and slowly thawing time.
»Her writing exists on an edge between an avid pursuit of the past and an acknowledgment of the eventual meaninglessness of memorialising. There is a sense that she might, at any point, be tempted into silence.« The Guardian
»Much in Holy Winter 20/21 is of great tenderness in interplay with intoxicating inspiration.« Marie Luise Knott, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»In nearly every line, Holy Winter 20/21 reveals multiple historical and literary layers.« Helmut Böttiger, taz am wochenende
»Maria Stepanova is a magician with words. She directs an entire orchestra of voices ...« Ilma Rakusa, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Poetry of astonishing presence.« Deutschlandfunk
»Much in Holy Winter 20/21 is of great tenderness in interplay with intoxicating inspiration.« Marie Luise Knott, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»In nearly every line, Holy Winter 20/21 reveals multiple historical and literary layers.« Helmut Böttiger, taz am wochenende
»Maria Stepanova is a magician with words. She directs an entire orchestra of voices ...« Ilma Rakusa, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
»Poetry of astonishing presence.« Deutschlandfunk
»Her writing exists on an edge between an avid pursuit of the past and an acknowledgment of the eventual meaninglessness of memorialising. There is a sense that she might, at any point, be tempted into silence.« The Guardian
»Much in Holy Winter 20/21 is of great tenderness in interplay with intoxicating inspiration.« Marie Luise Knott, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»In nearly every line, Holy Winter 20/21...
»Much in Holy Winter 20/21 is of great tenderness in interplay with intoxicating inspiration.« Marie Luise Knott, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
»In nearly every line, Holy Winter 20/21...
Read more
2023, 119 pages
Persons
Maria Stepanova
Author
Maria Stepanova, born in Moscow in 1972, is a poet, essayist and journalist. Her works have received numerous international prizes. She has been a formative figure in Moscow’s cosmopolitan literary scenefor a good twenty years. Following the success of her first prose work Памяти памяти, she is now internationally regarded as one of Europe's most important intellectual voices.
Suhrkamp represents world rights to Maria Stepanova’s oeuvre.
Suhrkamp represents world rights to Maria Stepanova’s oeuvre.
Maria Stepanova
Author
Maria Stepanova, born in Moscow in 1972, is a poet, essayist and journalist. Her works have received numerous international prizes. She has been a...
© Ekko von Schwichow
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2024
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2024
Disappearing Act
Maria Stepanova’s new novella centres around an author referred to only as “M.” M. has been living in the city B. since leaving her home country, which is currently waging war on a neighbouring...
Rights sold to:
UK & Commonwealth (Fitzcarraldo Editions), USA & Canada (New Directions), Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Catalan (Angle), Brazilian Portuguese rights (WMF Martin Fontes), Portuguese rights (Rélogio d’Agua), France (Stock), Italy (Bompiani), Netherlands (Bezige Bij), Denmark (Palomar), Sweden (Nirstedt/litteratur), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Siltala), Czech Republic (Akropolis), Greece (Gutenberg)
Year of Publication: 2020
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2020
The Body Returns
Even before the international success of her first work of prose, Post-Memory, Maria Stepanova was a famous author. For twenty years, she has been contributing to shaping Moscow’s...
Rights sold to:
Italy (Bompiani)
Year of Publication: 2020
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2020
Girls Without Clothes
Girls Without Clothes, Clothes Without Us, If Air – Maria Stepanova continues her endeavour of »mending life« in her new cycles of poems. They can be...
Rights sold to:
The contents of the Suhrkamp-edition are also included in the Italian selection of poems to be published by Bompiani and the Swedish edition of The Body Returns (Kroppens återkomst), published by Nirstedt/literatur in 2021. Other language rights are available.
Greece (Vakxikon)
Year of Publication: 2018
Maria StepanovaYear of Publication: 2018
In Memory of Memory
Montpellier, 1908: the photograph of a young woman by an easel or »Grandma on the barricades«, as the family calls it. Pre-Revolution portraits, postcards from Venice, Montpellier, or...
Rights sold to:
USA (New Directions), Canada (Book*hug Press), UK & Commonwealth (Fitzcarraldo Editions), Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Chinese simplex rights (China CITIC Press), Brazilian Portuguese rights (WMF Martins Fontes), Portuguese rights (Relógio D'Água), France (Stock, Paperback Sublicense: Le Livre de Poche), Italy (Bompiani), Netherlands (De Bezige Bij), Denmark (Palomar), Sweden (Nirstedt/litteratur), Norway (Gyldendal Norsk), Finland (Siltala), Korea (Bokbok Seoga), Japan (Hakusuisha), Poland (Prószyński), Czech Republic (Akropolis), Hungary (Park), Bulgaria (Janet45), Romania (Humanitas), Lithuania (Alma Littera), Croatia (Fraktura), Serbia (Booka), Slovenia (Beletrina), Turkey (CAN), Greece (Vakxikon), North Macedonia (Bata Press)
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