Max Lawton (Ph.D. candidate, Slavic Languages), the translator of Vladimir Sorokin’s Telluria (NYRB Books) and Their Four Hearts (Dalkey Archive), recounts touring with the author in “A Cinematic Country: Sixteen Days in American with Vladimir Sorokin” (The Point, Nov. 29, 2022).

On the way to the Brooklyn Book Festival panel Vladimir is speaking on, our Uber driver almost hits an old man. The driver and the man scream at each other, two dueling, expletive-filled rants. Vladimir grins and speaks to me in a hushed tone, never mind the fact that the driver can’t understand: “America really is a cinematic country. We’re living in a movie: first the hurricane, then the firefighters, now this…”