I was very touched by the story of Boonin that he lost his artistic mojo, essentially. He came to the Great Short Story Area, a Russian short story. Right. Well, he kind of epitomizes the loss of readership because Boonin was a huge figure in Tsar as Russia. That's where some of the other writers, he comes to Paris and now his community is shrunken. And also, many of the Russian emigres was too preoccupied earning a crust to actually want to buy short stories by Boonin or any of the others. The poets suffered horribly. No one really, they're all too depressed and exhausted to be buying books
The Man Booker prize winning novelist George Saunders turns to short-stories for his latest book, Liberation Day. From workers dressed as ‘ghouls’ in an underground amusement park to brainwashed political protestors and story-telling slaves his protagonists underscore what it means to live in community with others. George Saunders tells Tom Sutcliffe how his stories veer from bizarre fantasy to brutal reality.
The move from fantasy to stark reality can be seen in the history of Russians living in exile in Paris after the Revolution in 1917. Helen Rappaport’s After the Romanovs details how former princes, used to a life of luxury, could be seen driving taxicabs. While some emigres, like Diaghilev and Chagall, found great success in this new world, others became trapped in a cycle of poverty and homesickness for a country that was no longer theirs.
The BFI and UK-wide horror film season In Dreams are Monsters celebrates how monstrous bodies of all kinds have been represented on screen over the past hundred years. Curator Anna Bogutskaya explores the symbolism and emotional impact of ghosts, vampires, witches and, arguably the most politicised of all cinematic monsters, the zombie – a terrifying, dead-eyed blank canvas for social commentary.
Producer: Katy Hickman