**** Stretch Goals Met! ****
As I write this, we are just $12 shy of our second stretch goal of $20,000, which is truly amazing!
Let's not split hairs here. We'll call that goal met!
This means that EVERY $18+ backer, EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD will be sent a free 2015 Russian Life Wall Calendar (we will send them, but we can't guarantee the reliability of local postal services, sorry:). And it also means that we will be sending 2 copies of Red Star Tales to each of over 200 schools and universities in the US where Russian is taught. How great is that?!
And there are still 24 hours to go before the project closes, so anyone jumping on board at $18 or above gets the great wall calendar - a $20 value, even if they are in Kuala Lumpur or Quito, Columbus or San Francisco.
This has been a great ride. Thanks again to all our amazing backers!
Paul Richardson
Publisher
DESCRIPTION
For most of the past 100 years, works of Soviet and Russian Science Fiction might as well have existed in a different universe for how well they were known in the West.
What few works did appear in English during the Cold War tended to be wrapped in political agendas. Western publishers singled out Soviet works that contained allegories of political dissidence; Soviet publishing houses offered stilted translations of dry, ideologically-correct fables. While some fine works certainly did get through the Iron Curtain, most that did were hardly representative of the rich tradition of science fiction in Russian literature.
In reality, the last 100 years in Russia has seen an astonishing diversity and depth of literary works in the science fiction genre, by authors with a dizzying array of styles and subject matter.
It's time for a reboot!
This Kickstarter project will sponsor the publication in 2015 of the first comprehensive edition of truly notable Russian and Soviet science fiction – works chosen for their artistic and scientific merit, not because of any political or ideological agenda.
We’re titling the book Red Star Tales.
The 400+-page volume will include 18 stories, spanning from path-breaking, pre-revolutionary works of the 1890s, through the difficult Stalinist era, to post-Soviet stories published in the 1980s and 90s.
None of the works in this volume has ever been translated into English before, and we are engaging the services of some of the finest translators available to help us produce the sort of quality publication our 25-year-old company is known for.
The works will be richly annotated and introduced, to help the reader appreciate the context in which the stories were published, and how they were received. Among others, there will be works by the founder of Russian rocketry, by the “Soviet Jules Verne,” by the renowned writer Andrei Platonov, and by masters such as Dolgushin and Altov – household names to a significant cross-section of the Russian intelligentsia, but virtually unheard of in the West.
For over 100 years, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This project will bring a large body of influential works into the English orbit.
Check out the list at right to discover the benefits on offer, which includes copies of the book, ebooks, a poster and, yes, a cool refrigerator magnet!
Join us, won't you?
About Us
Our publishing company was founded almost exactly 25 years ago, in the heady days of perestroika and talk of the "Coming Russian Boom." {You can read the whole story here.}
We started out by creating books and maps for people traveling to and doing business in Moscow, then moved into newsletters. The ground shifted around about our fifth birthday when we acquired the magazine Russian Life. That has been the main focus of our business ever since, putting out a quality, bimonthly magazine on every aspect of, well, Russian life.
Yet we also have continued to publish books, maps, calendars and, for the past 7 years, Chtenia – the only regularly published journal of Russian literature in translation. We currently have about two dozen books in print, and come out with 3-5 new titles per year, with a special focus on things that have never been done before. Like, say, this book.
Risks and challenges
We have been publishing books, periodicals and other publications for 25 years and are confident that, if successfully funded, this book will be produced on schedule, and at a quality level we all can be very proud of.
The risks for this project are minimal. Yes, we could have some author not agree to be published in the volume. But we have several notable and worthy works ready as backups. We also have multiple translators at work on the job, so there is little or no risk the translations and editing will not be done by this summer.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterFAQ
-
Well, to begin with, there is Russian Life, a 25-year-old publisher of books, maps, periodicals, and more for Russophiles the world over. You can view our website and read more of our history at russianlife.com.
The editor of the book is Yvonne Howell, a professor of Russian and International Studies at the University of Richmond and a noted expert on Russian Science Fiction. Translators include Anindita Banerjee, Sibelan Forrester, Muireann Maguire, Kevin Reese, Yvonne Howell and Liv Bliss. Our video editor was Victoria Savchenko, and our amazing book cover designer was Taisiya Kulygina.
-
Because some agreements for stories are still pending, we cannot yet make that announcement. We do not want to release a partial list, so we will release the full table of contents as an update to backers in the spring.
-
We needed more lead time on this project, so that we could get information about the project into the printed issue of Russian Life (Jan/Feb), to give print subscribers time to check the project out.
Rewards
Funding period
- (48 days)