Introduction & Biographies

INTRODUCTION

Our modern understanding of nonfiction occupies a dubious piece of real-estate, somewhere within and between the major genres of fiction, drama, and poetry, and given the identity-crisis embedded within its title (‘not-fiction’?), it is argued for and defined in a number of different ways. An easy answer to this is to always to say that nonfiction is “the truth,” but the only style of writing that even approaches the area code of this rather rigid definition is perhaps the cut-and-dry fact reportage of traditional newspaper journalism. In this course, we hoped to shake up our collective understanding of the nonfiction genre. We introduced students to a range of traditional and experimental styles and voices, from travel writing to so-called gonzo journalism. Rather than expatiating on theoretical matters, we plunged into the practical application of the nonfiction realm, letting our daring students grasp various ways and forms of documenting subjective reality in a creative and artistic vein. The exercises and sketches presented in this collection are working impressions of what our students have been reading, discussing, and emulating during the course. They reflect their method of testing the literary devices and techniques common in nonfiction genres, as discovered in texts assigned to them for studying and scanning. We hope this class got them as excited as we are about the rich potential of nonfiction. It was such an honor to work with this talented group of students. They were full of energy, insights, humor, in sum, they were brilliant. And, English not being their first language, they contrived to try and master many small tricks of describing, captivating, provoking, puzzling or amusing their readers with written words. We wish them all the best in this awesome venture.

Alisa Ganieva and Jen Percy

INSTRUCTOR BIOGRAPHIES

Alisa GANIEVA (Алиса Ганиева) is a Russian novelist, essayist, and media journalist; she grew up in Dagestan, the setting of most of her fiction. In 2009, her Salam Dalgat! won Russia’s prestigious national Debut Prize; it was followed by The Mountain and the Wall (English translation 2015) and The Bride and Bridegroom (shortlisted for the 2015 Russian Booker; published in the US in 2018); the English translation of her most recent novel, Offended Sensibilities, is forthcoming in 2022. A repeat participant in various IWP residencies and events, she was a juror for the 2018 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Her work has been translated into many languages and praised globally. She lives in Moscow, and is a literary critic for Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Jennifer PERCY, the author of Demon Camp: A Soldier’s Exorcism (2014), is a widely traveled and published journalist and magazine writer. Her work has appeared in the Oxford American, Harper’s, The New Republic and the New York Times Magazine, among many other places; her honors include a NEA grant, a Pushcart, the National Magazine Award for Feature Writing and, in 2020, the Dart Award for Excellence in Reporting on Trauma. She teaches writing at Columbia University.