Where are you
from?
I was born and raised
in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
What inspired you
to write your first book?
My first book was a
memoir titled When my Time Came to Chant with S.D.
It was a story of my married life in a Russian bohemian gang of late sixties.
My leading character was my husband, Sergey Dovlatov, a fib master and an
author of considerable renown in Russia. I was inspired to write the memoir by
his untimely death.
Do you write
full-time or part-time? How do you balance your writing life with your
family/work life?
I write full time no
less than 12 hours a day, and the only way I can balance my family life with
writing is by parting with my husband for about half a year. We happen to live
both in the US and Germany.
What jobs have you
held that influence your stories?
During the first decade
of my American life I was getting my PhD at Stanford and teaching Literature
and literary theories at Reed College. For the second decade I plunged into the
world of commerce. There I managed to secure myself financially, thus enabling
myself to write obligation free. None of
these experiences were admitted to my stories.
Do you have a
specific writing style?
Although I write both
non–fiction and fiction (screen plays, poetry and children stories), I like to
think I have a specific writing style. Two things support my belief. I tend to
break away from a strict notion of genre and I write in two languages (English
and Russian) thus transplanting the oddities of one mode of expression into the
other and vice versa.
How did you come
up with the titles?
I do not find title
pick is a matter of great significance. Books are rarely selected by titles.
Most influential authors that come to mind failed to create enticing titles:
Don Quixote by Cervantes, Anna Karenina by
Leo Tolstoy, Ulysses by James Joyce, The
Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, Inspector
General
by Nikolaj Gogol, The Magic Mountain by
Thomas Mann. On the other hand, Catch 22,
for example, seems to be a
formidable title yet it kept its author (Joseph Heller) waiting forever before
he enjoyed even a moderate success with readers. My title, Spark
the Stone Man must be a mediocre one although I hope the books
are not.
Is there a message
in your books that you want readers to grasp?
The only message I
would like my readers to grasp, is the one I created for myself: DON’T OPEN NEW
WORLDS, OPEN YOUR EYES.
How much of your
books are realistic?
My books are totally
realistic in a sense that their characters (both fictional and non–fictional)
mirror myself. It is me who is both real and non–real, both guileless and
guileful.
Are experiences
based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Not really.
What books have
most influenced your life?
There are so many
magnificent authors that affected me one way or another that I am not sure I
can give justice to them even in part. William Faulkner, Henri Miller, Andrey
Bely, Lawrence Stern, Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, D.H.Lawrence, Jonathan
Frazer, Gary Shteyngart, Neil Gaiman, August Burroughs, are among the few I
profoundly enjoyed reading.
If you had to
choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Nikolaj Gogol
(1809-1852).
What book are you
reading now?
The Basic
Problems of Phenomenology by Martin Heidegger and Three
Tales of My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett.
Are there any new
authors that have grasped your interest?
Yes, mainly Russian
authors, Tender Theater by Nikolay
Kononov, for example.
What are your
current projects?
I am revising and
translating my book published in 2010 by Aletheia Publishers in Russia. It is
titled the
Hermetic World of Immanuel Kant: Beyond Hearing and Vision. I am also finishing my children’s series
titled Spark’s
Further Exploits (mainly writing poems both in Russian
and English).
Name one entity
that you feel supported you outside of family members.
A company called Novel
Laureate School Visits supports me by having selected my children’s series as a
gift to Nobel laureates visiting American public schools, and most talented
students that attend the American public schools.
Do you see writing
as a career?
Rather a lifestyle.
If you had to do
it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
I perpetually rewrite
my books. I do so even after I publish them. In a way, I feel I am more an
editor than a content creator.
Do you recall how
your interest in writing originated?
That is an embarrassing
recollection. As I was surrounded by writers, I once pushed myself into writing
a story, too. Should I manage to finish it, it would have been a contrived
piece of rubbish. Luckily I was unable to bring it to completion and
discarded. And it took me twenty years
before I could sit down to write something which I was compelled to write.
Can you share a
little of your current work with us?
With my non–fiction
project I am now writing an introductory note to Kant’s Critique
of Practical Reason. As this chapter follows my detailed
reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
I have devised an untried alternative. I wrote a fictional story of a man named
Josef K. who lived in a fictitious world built on Kantian moral principles
(arguably adopted by the Nazi state) by Franz Kafka. Joseph K. is actually both
Kant and Kafka enacting the plot of The Process
in such a way that Kant leads a nocturnal life and Kafka’s character acts in
the day time.
For my children project
I am working with a wonderful composer who writes music to my little poems and
also supplants me with musical scores for which I create new poems. This is a
novel and most enchanting experience for me.
Is there anything
you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Two things: starting a
story and finishing it.
Do you have to
travel much concerning your book(s)?
I do not leave my desk
to create stories thus hoping to mimic the style of Marcel Proust.
Who designed the
covers?
The covers of my
children series are designed by an amazing animation artist, Olga Titova. She
has received a British Academy Award and was nominated for an Oscar, alas, for
the texts written by Shakespeare and Chaucer. She is also the one who brings to
light the slightest inconsistencies in my plots.
What was the
hardest part of writing your book?
It is easier for me to
create enticing scoundrels than enticing stars.
Did you learn
anything from writing your book and what was it?
I learned that negative
comments, regardless of how irrelevant they seem to be, can be construed as
view points worthy of consideration and positive comments, no matter how
unobliging they seem to be, can always be construed as a critique and used for
further improvement.
Do you have any
advice for other writers?
I feel there is no
writing for fun, as writing is a condition which, once it grips you, will never
release.
Do you have
anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Please, don’t be lax
about my writing.
What were the
challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it
to life?
To get inside some
characters’ minds.
What do you think
about e-publishing versus technical publishing?
I like e–publishing
especially because technical publishing tends to create rigid rules that kill
ingenious writing.
Do you have an
agent or publisher? How did you go about finding one?
My books written in
Russian were published effortlessly. For publishing my children’s books I created
a publishing company, Pekasus, and engaged five people in the process. My
several attempts to sell translation rights have failed. However, I have not
really attempted to do so in a systematic fashion. When all six books are
published in a hard cover and e-pub formats and equipped with musical scores
and professionally narrated CDs, I will do the marketing full scale.
If you could live
anywhere, where would it be?
Perhaps, Japan.
If you could have
any super power, what would it be?
I want to be able to
turn into animals and insects at my whim.
For More on Asya:
http://www.an-animation.com/
For More on Asya:
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