Victoria Lomasko – författare

"""Powerful... Her focus on the daily lives of regular people offers a respite from the international fixation on Vladimir Putin""--Sophie Pinkham, The New YorkerOther Russias is the brilliant first collection of graphic journalism by artist and activist Victoria Lomasko.A fixture at Moscow's protests and political trials, Lomasko illuminates the inequality and injustice at the heart of contemporary Russian society and gives voice to Russia's many voiceless citizens. Not content to remain in the capital, she travels the country, visiting schools in dying villages; interviewing sex workers in foundering industrial towns; teaching children at juvenile prisons to draw, all while drawing their stories. Her portraits allow readers to see these people as more than words on paper and to see them as she does: with dignity, compassion, and love.Other Russias is an urgent and poignant work by a major talent."

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BOOK PRIZE 2018From a renowned graphic artist and activist, an incredible portrait of life in Russia todayWhat does it mean to live in Russia today? What is it like to grow up in a forgotten city, to be a migrant worker or to grow old and seek solace in the Orthodox church?For the past eight years, graphic artist and activist Victoria Lomasko has been travelling around Russia and talking to people as she draws their stories. She spent time in dying villages where schoolteachers outnumber students; she stayed with sex workers in the city of Nizhny Novgorod; she went to juvenile prisons and spoke to kids who have no contact with the outside world; and she attended every major political rally in Moscow. The result is an extraordinary portrait of Russia in the Putin years -- a country full of people who have been left behind, many of whom are determined to fight for their rights and for progress against impossible odds. Empathetic, honest, funny, and often devastating, Lomasko's portraits show us a side of Russia that is hardly ever seen.

"For fans of Joe Sacco, a panoramic, stunningly illustrated account of Russia and the post-Soviet space by an anti-Putin artist exiled from her homeland.Even before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, dissent in Russia was an increasingly elusive commodity. Since then it has been effectively banned, as Russian dissidents are assassinated, imprisoned, or forced into exile. The result is that, both at home and abroad, the experience and texture of Russian society have become difficult to grasp. What is actually happening in Russia and the former USSR today? The Last Soviet Artist offers a vivid, original, brilliantly illustrated answer.Banned from exhibiting her work at home, Victoria Lomasko is an exile and a dissident of the old school. Much ink has been spilled about Russia during the Putin years, but there is nothing like Lomasko's sui generis graphic reportage, unwavering in its humanity and its determination to find space for artistic freedom in a climate of near-total repression. Lomasko's first book, the award-winning Other Russias (n+1 Books), is now in its fourth printing and was translated into seven languages. The Last Soviet Artist will pick up where Other Russias left off, offering an urgent intervention that will further deepen Western readers' understanding of Russia at a moment of extreme cultural isolation. And if it ruffles some important feathers along the way, well—Lomasko is used to it."