ELKOST International literary agency - International Memorial Society Chairman Arseny Roginsky Dies At 71

Arseny Roginsky, a veteran activist who was chairman of the respected Memorial human rights society, died on December 18 of cancer at the age of 71.

Those willing to bid the last farewell to Arseny Roginsky are welcome at the International Memorial (5/10 Karetny Ryad) on Friday, 22 December, from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Watch the ceremony live on Youtube: https://youtu.be/cSjz8KZXpWA

The funeral is scheduled to take place on Saturday, 23 December, at 2:30 p.m. at Vvedenskoye cemetery (1, Nalichnaya st.)

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World media remembers Arseny Roginsky:

The Historical Truth-Telling of Arseny Roginsky By David Remnick

How Arseny Roginsky Confronted the Politics of Memory in Russia By Masha Gessen

Arseny Roginsky, la disparition d'une voix libre en Russie by François Bonnet

Featured titles

In Love with a Pencil, essays by Sasha Okun (NF)

Rights sold: Russia - SLOVO

The book was created as a textbook on pencil drawing techniques for beginners and professionals, but it is in fact something much more broad and interesting than just a manual on drawing. It is rather a manual on artistic perception of reality.

"All great masters of the past regardless of their main craft, be it sculpture or painting, were great draftsmen: Rubens, Rembrandt, Matisse, Picasso, Moore, Rodin... Drawing is the foundation, the cornerstone of any visual art. There's an endless amount of books and manuals about the art of drawing. Among them, there are bad, good, and very good ones. The question is, why write yet one more? The fact is that regardless of their quality, all of these books answer the question "how"? Some of them are even entitled "How to draw a portrait (landscape, model, still life, hands, etc.)." However, in my humble opinion, every "how" depends on"what" and "why". These "what" and "why" define the "how" on every stage of creative process, from initial choice of format to the techniques used to achieve the desired result.This book is an attempt to discuss a multitude of drawing-related issues from the point of view of artistic goals set by draftsmen, to take a look at artistic techniques and devices not as of something that exist abstractly and independently, but as of instruments, of means for achieving the goal, and of means that are an integral part of this goal, because in visual art "what" and "how" are inseparable.Still, any book regardless of its genre - be it a textbook, a memoir, a novel, or a tour guide - should fist and foremost make an interesting read. As Alexandre Dumas put it once, "all genres are good, except the boring." This commandment of the great novelist and culinary specialist is more important to me than purity of the genre. So, there a bit of everything in my book: analysis of the works by great masters of the past, practical advice, reflections, memories, anecdotes, and my thoughts about art accumulated over more than forty years I've been teaching people to draw." - writes Okun in a preface to In Love with a Pencil.

Surprisingly, the book conceived as a drawing manual turned out to be a tutorial on the vision of the world in all its diversity. Of course, this book will be extremely valuable and useful to artists, especially for beginners. But at the same time, it will be of use to everyone seeking to expand his general vision of life. Today's literary market is like a food store where dairy, meat, fruits, and booze each belong to its department. Same with books: there are a separate shelves for fiction, educational literature, philosophy, technical books etc. Everything is sorted out by its genre. Okun's book is rare product, a piece that does not fit into one single category, but to many. For publisher, such a non-standard books is a great challenge, but for readers it’s a rare joy. -- Ludmila Ulitskaya

Original languages: Hebrew, Russian. Around 55.000 words, color illustrations.

Funeral Party, a novel by Ludmila Ulitskaya (1997)

Rights sold: Bulgaria - COLIBRI, China - Zhejiang Literature & Art, Croatia - VUKOVIC, Croatia – SYSPRINT, Denmark - GYLDENDAL, Estonia - TANAPAEV, Finland - TAMMI, France - GALLIMARD, Germany - VOLK UND WELT (LUCHTENHAND LUEBBE), Great Britain - VICTOR GOLLANZ (ORION MASS MARKET), Greece - EKDOSEIS KASTANIOTIS, Hungary - MAGVETO, Iran - Houpaa Books, Israel - HA KIBBUTZ, Italy - FRASSINELLI, Japan - Shinchosha, Korea - MARCO POLO, Macedonia - Publisher DOOEL, The Netherlands - DE GEUS, Portugal - RELOGIO D’AGUA, Romania - S.C HUMANITAS S.A, Slovakia - SLOVART, Spain - LUMEN RANDOM HOUSE, Sweden – BAZAR, ERSATZ, Turkey - ITHAKI, USA – SCHOCKEN, USA - KNOPF, World Arabic - AL MADA

August 1991. In a sweltering New York City apartment, a group of Russian émigrés gathers round the deathbed of an artist named Alik, a charismatic character beloved by them all,
especially the women who take turns nursing him as he fades from this world. Their reminiscences of the dying man and of their lives in Russia are punctuated by debates and squabbles: Whom did Alik love most? Should he be baptized before he dies, as his alcoholic wife, Nina, desperately wishes, or be reconciled to the faith of his birth by a rabbi who happens to be on hand? And what will be the meaning for them of the Yeltsin putsch, which is happening across the world in their long-lost Moscow but also right before their eyes on CNN?

"A deft, economical portrait of an engaging set of characters whose behavior, though occasionally screwball, is never one-dimensional... Riotously funny—a quirky, tender
story..." (New York Times Book Review)

"…Smart and prickly book, one with echoes of Isaac Babel and Isaac Bashevis Singer and perhaps a dose of Samuel Beckett as well." (New York Times)

"Beautiful, lyrical prose is the hallmark of this novel." (Library Journal)