For more than 26 years The John Fowles Center (JFC) for Creative Writing in Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, has hosted the Literary Art Reading Series every spring.  The ’23 series will be hosting two prolific writers, Mikhail Shishkin (April 3) one of the most prominent writers in Russia today and Andrei Kurkov (May 1) a distinguished Ukrainian novelist, journalist, and screenwriter.

Mikhail Shishkin

Mikhail Shishkin (April 3)

Shishkin is the only writer to have ever received all three of Russia’s most prestigious literary awards: the Russian Booker Prize (2000), the National Bestseller Prize (2006), and the Big Book Prize (2006, 2011).

Every single one of his novels have been adapted for stage production in Russia and have been translated into 28 languages, with his English-language debut Maidenhair, a story about love and war in 2012.

Andrei Kurkov

Andrei Kurkov (May 1)

Kurkov has written 19 novels, including the bestselling Death and the Penguin (2001), nine books for children, and more than 20 documentaries (as well as fiction and movie scripts). His work is translated into 37 languages and is published in 65 countries.

His most recent publication, Jimi Hendrix Live In Lviv, is a story about a “ragtag” group who will stop at nothing to save Lviv, described as one of those most intriguing cities in the world. However, when he’s not writing dark comedy novels such as this one, Kurkov is reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his home country.

Please join Wilkinson College and the John Fowles Center for these exciting two events on April 3 and May 1 in Beckman 404, Bush Conference Room, at 5 p.m. Admission is free!

Over the years the Fowles Center has brought some of the most distinguished writers in the world including Nobel Laureates Mario Vargas Llosa and Wole Soyinka, Nobel nominees such as Dacia Maraini and Claudio Magris and a host of other writers such as Salman Rushdie, Luisa Valenzuela, Giuseppe Conte, Alessandro Barrico, just to name a few.

(Pictured above: John Fowles)