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Igor Pomerantsev Russia    PWF 2008, 1997

Igor Pomerantsev

Igor Pomerantsev was born in 1948, on the Volga River, the longest river in Europe. His early years were spent in the Far East of Russia near Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. He was taken by his parents to the Soviet Ukraine, to Czernovitz—the former Austro-Hungarian cultural oasis of the German-speaking world—where he was a representative of the Russian minority and where he learned the most imperial language of modern times which unconsciously catapulted his person in 1979 to London—working for the BBC’s Russian Service at Bush House.

“I have no interest in describing culture. But to create and blow culture like glass is thrilling.”

Igor Pomerantsev’s works include: Aubades and Serenades, Luxury Items, Wind Instruments, Dry Red, Family Status, Rado “S”, and Radio Lyrics recently published in Moscow.

“The people are dead, but their voices are fresh, juicy. I slip them into repeats. They need the exercise.”

Igor Pomerantsev lives in Prague, where he broadcasts for Radio Liberty.

 

Igor Pomerantsev

Igor Pomerantsev: Profile

04.04.2008 Articles

It is hard to pin Pomerantsev down. “Outsider” is simply too glib. But how to characterize a writer who slips with a chuckle past all the easy categories?

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Igor Pomerantsev

Igor Pomerantsev: Air is Free!

04.04.2008 Readings

I've been a broadcaster for more than a quarter of a century, first for the BBC's Russian Service (Bush House) and then the Russian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Munich, Prague). As a rule I'm surrounded by thinking, creative people.

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Igor Pomerantsev

Igor Pomerantsev: A life spent on shortwave

04.04.2008 Readings

You have to be totally devoid of common sense not to believe in mystery. Mystery is there every step we take, literally under our noses. This is something every lathe operator who works with metal, every joiner who works with wood, every sculptor who works with hard, granular and liquid materials knows. In the town square of Mainz there is a fountain by the Russian sculptor Vadim Kosmachov. He works with sheet steel and zinc, beech and pine, water and wind. When children play in Kosmachov’s elegant creation in the summertime, their voices and the splash of water become an integral part of the sculptural image. That is a miracle. A mystery. One day I made a recording of the fountain, and it’s been flowing on air ever since.

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Igor Pomerantsev

Radio Lyrics: I’ll whisper them in your ear

04.04.2008 Readings

Igor Pomerantsev

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