Anne O. Fisher
Anne O. Fisher has translated two novels and a travelogue by the Soviet writing duo Ilf and Petrov. Her translations of Andrey Platonov and Margarita Meklina have appeared in Cabinet Magazine and in the 2015 Norton anthology Flash Fiction International, while her translations of Ksenia Buksha are forthcoming in Cardinal Points and the St. Petersburg Review. With her husband, Derek Mong, she has co-translated the poetry of Maxim Amelin; their work has appeared in Asymptote, Two Lines, and elsewhere. In 2014 they published the first English-language interview with Amelin in Jacket2. Fisher is a recipient of translation grants from the NEH and NEA and lives in Portland, Oregon with her family.
The Joyous Science, Part 1
The True Story of the Famous Bruce, Composed in Verse from the Accounts of Several Eyewitnesses
by Maxim Amelin, translated from the Russian by Derek Mong and Anne O. Fisher
Maxim Amelin’s “The Joyous Science” chronicles the real and imagined exploits of Jacob Bruce (1669 – 1735), an astronomer, alchemist, and military strategist to Peter the Great. The poem is a mock epic, a biographical adventure, and a series of comedic set pieces that demonstrate how Amelin—in the words of the 2013 committee for the Solzhenitsyn Prize—has “expand[ed] the limits and possibilities” of Russian verse.
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