She-Bears, House Spirits, and Baba Yaga: Folkloric Characters and Motifs in Contemporary Russian Literature

Evgenia Nekrasova is a Russian feminist writer and poet, as well as the co-founder of the School of Modern Literature Practices in Moscow. Her plays have been staged in the main experimental theaters in Moscow and other cities. Her novel Kalechina-Malechina (AST/Elena Shubina, 2018) was short-listed for the most prestigious Russian literary awards (Big Book, NOS, the National Bestseller). She has authored five collections of short stories, also on AST/Elena Shubina: Unhappy Moscow (2017), Sistermom (2019), Home Love (2021), She-Bear (2023), and Baba Yaga’s Lawyer (2025); her newest novel, Kholodov Street, was published by Polyandria Publishing House in 2025. Nekrasova writes about women in today’s Russia; her work explores themes of corporeality, power, violence, magic, and folklore. According to some critics, she is the founder of magical pessimism in contemporary Russian literature. Despite her vocal anti-war position, Nekrasova remains in Russia.

Marianna Suleymanova is a literary translator from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, currently living in Philadelphia. Her translations of Nekrasova’s work have appeared in Washington Square Review, Words Without Borders, The Offing, The Kenyon Review, and Khoréo. Her work has received support from Words Without Borders, Bread Loaf Translators Conference, and the American Literary Translators Association.