Anya Gillinson is the author of the new memoir Dreaming in Russian. She was born in Moscow and moved to the United States as a teenager. She lives in New York City.
Q: What inspired you to write Dreaming in Russian, and how was the book’s title chosen?
A: At first it was my father and his story, not just his murder and his grotesque death in the country of his dreams, but his magnificent life in Russia, the country which he both loathed and was passionate about.
The longer I live in the Western reality, the further I move away from my Russian past, the stronger is my dream of Russia. I realize how disconnected I am from Russia; after all, I have spent most of my life (over 32 years) in the United States, since my teenage years.
And yet, or perhaps because of that, all that Russia has left me with are the dreams. That’s why the book is not titled "Thoughts in Russian," or "Thoughts on Russia," etc.
Also, my philosophy of life, my approach to life is Russian, Russian ethics and aesthetics, or at least I would like to think so….
But because I live in this American world, because I am a rather practical person, I have learned to adjust to it not only by speaking American but also by partially thinking and behaving American. But dreaming is always Russian. Nobody can judge or punish me for a dream…dreams are untouchable.
Q: Did you need to do much research to write the memoir, or was much of it written from your memories?
A: No. Memories of my childhood and my adolescence, including the stories I have been told by my grandparents and my parents, certain bits of phrases I overheard being spoken by them, remained intact.
Q: What do you see looking ahead when it comes to the relationship between the United States and Russia?
A: Countries have a habit of making up not because they want but because they need to, because it’s time, all dictated by self-interest. Countries like Russia and America have very little in common except for mutual distrust.
I also think Russia’s and America’s problem lies in the fact that Russia understands America way better than the other way around. Reasons lie in the psychological makeup of two nations, as well as in history..
Q: Given the focus on immigration today, what do you hope readers take away from your story?
A: Immigration is an illness that can never be overcome. A virus. This is a deeply personal story and not a political one. We all try to live our lives in such a way as not to compromise our character, without betraying ourselves and those close to us.
Yet immigration is all about compromise, adjustment, often enough it is running away from something terrible in the hope to get something better, or perhaps even realizing a dream.
But the price for this not just breaking apart with your old geography or your old job or even family, but with your way of thinking, and your entire way of being.
Immigration is a degrading process, not an ennobling one, a process which at any given moment can kill your dreams and your hopes, yet dream and hope you must in order not only to survive but also to live.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I have another major project I have begun working on that represents an important part of my life.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Only that this book is a personal story. I never try to tell people what to believe or give advice.
I am a product of my upbringing in the country where I grew up, and this story demonstrates, among other things, how difficult it is, if not impossible, for two cultures to co-exist and understand each other. We are forever lost in translations. But this is another story.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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