Folklore and Magical Thinking in Contemporary Russian-Language Literature

In her lecture, Evgenia Nekrasova will use examples from her own works and those of her fellow writers to explore how mythological characters, archetypal plots, & magical thinking help authors convey and represent reality in contemporary Russian-language literature. Evgenia Nekrasova (b. 1985) is a writer, poet, and co-founder of the School of Literary Practices (since 2020). She is the author of three novels (Katya and Kikimora (2018), Skin (2021), Kholodov Street (2025) and four collections of short stories, Sistermom (2019), Home Love (2021), She-Bear (2023), and Baba Yaga’s Lawyer (2025). Her prose has been adopted to the stage in the main experimental theaters in Moscow and other cities. Nekrasova is a winner of the NOS/Wanderer Award and the Lyceum Prize for Young Russian Authors, as well as a finalist of major Russian literature awards including the Big Book, NOS, and the National Bestseller. Nekrasova writes about women in today’s Russia; her work explores themes of corporeality, power, violence, magic, and folklore. According to some critics, she is the founder of magical pessimism in contemporary Russian literature.