Dear Faculty, Staff and Students-
We are very pleased to announce that 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 later this month 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
(details below). Please 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
1737 Cambridge Street, 3rd Floor, Room K354
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<mailto:clmartin@fas.harvard.edu>.
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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