{"product_id":"the-disappearing-act-9780811239400","title":"The Disappearing ACT","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe writer M has lived in the city of B ever since her homeland declared war on a neighboring state. Exiled, she is unable to write there and suffers from loneliness, shame, and despair, but then M is invited to give a reading at a literary festival in a nearby country. After a series of missed connections and mishaps, including losing her phone, she finds herself all alone in the wrong coastal town, befriending a local man and attending the circus...\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this brief interlude, severed from reality, it seems as if M may finally escape from herself, from her past, from her nationality. She could start all over from scratch and join the circus. Written in Maria Stepanova's rich and hypnotic prose, \u003cem\u003eThe Disappearing Act\u003c\/em\u003e oscillates between reality and dream, between an oppressive present and a lost past, between life and literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eStepanova, Maria:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003ePoet, novelist, essayist, and journalist, \u003cstrong\u003eMaria Stepanova\u003c\/strong\u003e is the author of ten poetry collections and three books of essays. Her poetry collections \u003cem\u003eHoly Winter 20\/21\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eWar of the Beasts and the Animals\u003c\/em\u003e were Poetry Book Society Translation Choices and winners of PEN Translates awards, and \u003cem\u003eWar of the Beasts and the Animals\u003c\/em\u003e was also shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation 2021. Her novel \u003cem\u003eIn Memory of Memory\u003c\/em\u003e won Russia's Big Book Award in 2018 and was published in English in Sasha Dugdale's translation. She was awarded the Berman Literature Prize for \u003cem\u003eIn Memory of Memory\u003c\/em\u003e, and was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and the James Tait Black Prize for Biography.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMaria Stepanova has received several Russian and international literary awards (including the prestigious Andrey Bely Prize and Joseph Brodsky Fellowship). In 2022 she was awarded the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2023 for a book of poetry, \u003cem\u003eMädchen ohne Kleider (Girls Without Clothes)\u003c\/em\u003e. She founded and was editor-in-chief of the online independent crowd-sourced journal Colta.ru, which engaged with the cultural, social and political reality of contemporary Russia until the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine when all dissenting media in Russia were forced to shut down. As a prominent critic of Putin's regime, she had to leave Russia and is now living in exile.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDugdale, Sasha:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eSasha Dugdale\u003c\/strong\u003e is a poet and translator. Her sixth book of poetry is \u003cem\u003eThe Strongbox\u003c\/em\u003e, published by Carcanet (UK) in 2024. \u003cem\u003eDeformations\u003c\/em\u003e (2020) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot and Derek Walcott Prizes. Her long poem \"Joy\" won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem of 2016. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDugdale's translation of Maria Stepanova's prose work \u003cem\u003eIn Memory of Memory\u003c\/em\u003e was shortlisted for the International Booker and won the MLA Lois Roth Award. She has translated two of Stepanova's poetry collections and work by a number of Russian-language women poets, including Elena Shvarts and Marina Tsvetaeva. For many years she specialized in translating Russian-language new writing for theaters in the UK and US, including the New York Public Theater and the UK's Royal Court Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52033922302226,"sku":"9780811239400","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0993426e-12ff-4e6a-8043-41669be4a8d3.jpg?v=1770978088","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-disappearing-act-9780811239400","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}