Squaring the Circle

Went to last night's Squaring the Circle event at the Free Word in Farringdon. Five Russian Debut prize winners (Alisa Ganieva, Alexander Gritsenko, Arslan Khasavov, Polina Klyukina and Victor Puchkov) were there with Russian Booker winner Olga Slavnikova and Glas publisher Natasha Perova. The young winners were delightful, excited to be on their first visit to the UK

I was particularly interested in the work of Alisa Ganieva from Daghestan, who writes about her country under a male pseudonym (Gulla Khirachev). She told me she gets a lot of criticism for her work 'and it would be worse if they knew I were a woman.'
She and Polina (a fan of Emily Bronte) were surprised to learn that most of our great nineteenth century female authors also took male pseudonyms. Plus ca change...