Book Discussion: Skin, by E. Nekrasova

Session Submission Type: Book Discussion Roundtable

Brief Description

This roundtable will discuss Nekrasova's award-winning novel Skin (2021). Skin is likely the first work of fiction in either Russian or English to place portrayals of Russian serfdom and American slavery side-by-side, through the intersecting lives of its two heroines Domna and Hope. Hope is an enslaved Black woman in the American South, Domna is an enserfed peasant woman in the Russian Empire, and Nekrasova’s novel uses magical realism to bring their stories together with dazzling effect. Nekrasova’s Skin is a critical meditation on embodied memory, human will, and emancipation, as well as a reimagining of the old boundaries and new possibilities for transnational sisterhood and solidarity. Participants on the roundtable will discuss several key questions related to the book’s purpose and publication, including: the significance of releasing Skin as a serialized audiobook first, before publishing it in print, and the differences in experiencing the story between the two mediums; the treatment of race and class in the novel and a consideration of why fictional serf narratives have not proliferated in Russophone literature to the same extent that slave narratives have become an influential genre in Anglophone literature; the importance and symbolism of the body in Nekrasova's exploration of the themes of trauma, memory, and kinship; and Nekrasova’s use of varied intertexts – from Alexander Pushkin and Toni Morrison, to Tatar-influenced hip-hop and Gullah Geechee folklore – to craft her radical literary statement of cross-racial empathy in light of the global destabilizing events that opened our current decade.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 21st Century

Chair

• Ilona Sotnikova, Smith College

Roundtable Speakers

• Kathryn Anne Duda, Mercyhurst U

• Elena Gapova, Western Michigan U / European Humanities U (Lithuania)

• Laura Little, Connecticut College

• Christy Monet, Brown U