Dear Faculty, Staff and Students-

Elif Batuman—Harvard alumna (Slavic ’99), Stanford lecturer, and contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Harper’s Magazine—will be at the Davis Center on Friday to discuss her new book, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. The New York Times Book Review hails The Possessed as a book “…that’s ostensibly about her favorite Russians but is actually about a million other things: grad school, literary theory, translation, biography, love affairs, the making of “King Kong,” working for the Let’s Go travel guidebook series, songs by the Smiths, even how to choose a nice watermelon in Uzbekistan. Crucially and fundamentally, it is also an examination of this question: How do we bring our lives closer to our favorite books?” To get at the answer to this interesting and compelling question, please attend Elif’s book talk (PLEASE NOTE ROOM CHANGE). Please continue to share this announcement with your (current and former) students and colleagues, as it’s sure to be of interest to many.

Friday, October 15

Book Talk

Co-sponsored by the Davis Center Outreach Program

“The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them”

Elif Batuman, Author; PhD in Comparative Literature, Stanford University; Harvard College ’99

Moderator: Svetlana Boym, Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Professor of Comparative Literature; Faculty Associate and Executive Committee, Davis Center

1730 Cambridge Street, Concourse Level, Room S020 (Belfer Case Study Room)

4:00-6:00 p.m.

If you would like paper copies of the attached flyer for distribution or postering, please contact Cris Martin at clmartin@fas.harvard.edu.

---

Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Harvard University

1730 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor

Cambridge, MA 02138

T 617.495.4037

F 617.495.8319

http://www.daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu