Link to the Show / Show NotesLittell’s latest novel “The Stalin Epigram,” is based on a riveting historical episode and is a fictional rendering of the life of the great twentieth century Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, one of the few artists in Soviet Russia who daringly refused to pay creative homage to Joseph Stalin.
A former Newsweek journalist, New York born Robert Littell has been writing about the Soviet Union and Russians since his first novel, the espionage classic The Defection of A.J.Lewinter. He is the author of fifteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller The Company and Legends, the 2005 L.A. Times Book Award for Best Thriller/Mystery. Among other numerous critically acclaimed novels are The October Circle, Mother Russia, The Debriefing, and The Visiting Professor.
The Stalin Epigram tells of the poet Mandelstam’s defiance of the Kremlin dictator and the Bolshevik regime —which reached its climax in 1934 when Mandelstam, putting his life on the line, composed a searing indictment of Stalin in a sixteen-line epigram and secretly recited it to a handful of friends and fellow artists.
In this week’s Inspired Minds Robert Littell talks to Breandáin O’Shea about his latest book, his encounter with Mandelstam’s wife back in the seventies and how he has been writing this book for almost 30 years.
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