Punctured Lines

Evgeny Shtorn, a writer, scholar, and LGBTQ+ activist was forced to leave Russia in 2018 and became a refugee in Ireland. In this humorous and poignant book, he narrates his experiences with literary flair. Read an excerpt on PuncturedLines.com and by the book from @skeinpress.bsky.social.

Join us on 21 October for the launch of 'The Refugee Chronicles' by Evgeny Shtorn at @hodgesfiggis.bsky.social 🚀 Evgeny will be joined on the eve by the wonderful @jesstraynor.bsky.social Presented in partnership with @smashingtimes.bsky.social and supported by @dublincityoflit.bsky.social

ICYMI: I have a very new, very short story in @othersidespec.bsky.social about the most hardworking spacecraft test dummy ever.

And you can buy the book directly from our website: skeinpress.com/product/the-...

We're so happy to have an excerpt from 'The Refugee Chronicles' published today on the brilliant @puncturedlines.bsky.social, a collaborative effort to highlight writing by those from the former Soviet Union now living in various diasporas You can read it here: puncturedlines.com/2026/10/14/t...

This book is both lyrical and tells a unique and rather sad story of migration. As the world rebuilds its walls, those of us with families elsewhere become ever so trapped and disconnected. It's good to have these poems for companionship and solace.

ICYMI, with many thanks to @olgaz.bsky.social for help with editing and technology.

ICYMI: Poems from Elina Katrin’s Overwintered. Katrin is a Syrian-Russian immigrant poet living in LA, whose English-language poetry incorporates Russian and Arabic. Overwintered is out in February and you can get a taste for it below and pre-order here: triohousepress.myshopify.com/.../pre-order.

And I also love the way this poem appears to be in conversation with the poem by Jane Muschenetz, "Yevgenia," that we published three years ago and that appeared in her collection ALL THE BAD GIRLS WEAR RUSSIAN ACCENTS. puncturedlines.com/2023/11/14/v...

In her poems, Elina Katrin beautifully captures the multicultural immigrant experience. She begins with her name, showing the way her Russian and Syrian roots weave together in three syllables that to many in her adopted country continue to be inscrutable.

Now on the blog. Thank you @olgaz.bsky.social for the editing help.

Did a resemblance of faces result in a resemblance of fates? Were there similar fates for the heroines of Nizami Ganjavi's poems? #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody www.chaiandconversation.com/persian-poet...

My Dreadful Body #Djabbarova26 #MyDreadfulBody starts today! readinganactofsharedsolitude.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/m...

"Where I come from in Leningrad, everyone wrote poetry. A lot of people who should never have touched a typewriter or a pencil still did it. I wasn’t immune, so I did too." @olgaz.bsky.social puncturedlines.com/2026/09/09/n...

Support these publishers any way you can. Buy a book, by a book in translation (try HURI Books for example) or donate directly. We will continue to import and offer for you everything from Ukrainian classics to translations.

Once again, we receive word that another Russian missile has destroyed, not a military target, but Ukrainian books. Our friends Ababahalamaha reported that their warehouse was hit. Other reports mention at least 60,000 books burned and destroyed in the attack. Why?

And thank you, @olgaz.bsky.social for the great slides below.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Akhmet Baitursynov was a poet of a state yet to come. His work teaching, reforming the Kazakh alphabet, and developing the language's grammar would eventually earn him the title "Teacher of the Nation."

ICYMI: “This Bone-Deep Memory of Movement”: A Conversation between Alina Adams and Irena Smith. @olgaz.bsky.social

"This sort of restlessness, this bone-deep memory of movement, whether by choice or by necessity—I think that that gets passed on generationally. And since we were both young when we left, we didn’t get a lot of say in where, or whether, we were going." puncturedlines.com/2026/08/18/t...

Last night, Artists Against the Kremlin opened at De Balie, in collaboration with @themoscowtimes.com. The exhibition brings together more than 70 works by Russian-speaking artists, including @pussyriot.bsky.social and many others. Free admission until 6 September. 📸 Viktoryia Kharytonova

Is there any interest in doing a group read of #MyDreadfulBody? I know people have gone off in different directions. Let me know.

For those who read in Russian, the title is "Руки женщин моей семьи были не для письма." (If you read in the original but it's not the language of the country you live in, does it or does it not count as translated literature? (Not seriously) asking for lots of us.)

It's #WitMonth, and among the many phenomenal titles, see below for @paperpills10.bsky.social's call for a group read of My Dreadful Body by Egana Dzhabbarova, translated from Russian by @lizoksbooks.bsky.social Writer, translator, group read leader are all women, and this novel is FABULOUS.

And a review of the novel - thank you, @olgaz.bsky.social for posting it: Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body: Exploring the Wounded Self and Belonging in Azerbaijani Diaspora Literature | The Common share.google/oYp9tmvo19uf...

And a Q&A with Lisa @lizoksbooks.bsky.social about her translating the novel: puncturedlines.com/2026/07/15/c...

Read an excerpt from My Dreadful Body to get a taste (no pun intended) on @puncturedlines.bsky.social: Tongue: An Excerpt from Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body, translated by Lisa C. Hayden – Punctured Lines share.google/nHFQaUMbxA85...

Read a phenomenal novel - in Russian, or translated by @lizoksbooks.bsky.social - with Reem, the phenomenal leader of group reads on Twitter and now on here. You won't regret either of these two things.

"The narrator’s toil with dystonia, a neurological movement disorder, serves as a visceral metaphor for this history; the illness not only robs her of speech and physical autonomy but mirrors the cultural constraints that have long stifled the women in her family."