Thursday, May 21, 2026 6:30 PM

Location:
Globus Books

332 Balboa st.
San Francisco,
CA, 94118

Join us for a compelling evening celebrating the debut novel The Undead: A Novel of Modern Russia by Svetlana Satchkova. 

In conversation with Olga Zilberbourg and Sasha Vasilyuk, Satchkova will explore the urgent themes at the heart of her novel: artistic freedom, moral compromise, and life under an oppressive system.

The evening will include a reading, discussion, audience Q&A, and book signing.

Event in English
Free entry with RSVP

A gripping and thought-provoking page-turner, The Undead follows a young filmmaker navigating a society overtaken by dark and familiar forces. Echoing the moral complexity of literary giants like Dostoyevsky and Bulgakov, the novel confronts timeless questions of responsibility, resistance, and the cost of survival in a fractured world.

Is this story uniquely Russian or unsettlingly universal?

Join us for a powerful conversation about literature, conscience, and the choices that define us.

Svetlana Satchkova is a Russian-born journalist and novelist who immigrated to the United States in 2016. She covers culture and politics, with bylines in the Rumpus, Newsweek, LARB, the Independent, and others.

Currently a research fellow at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at NYU, she holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn. Svetlana has published three novels in Russian; her English-language debut, The Undead: A Novel of Modern Russia, was released by Melville House in January 2026.

Olga Zilberbourg is a writer born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, who later immigrated to the United States. She has published three fiction collections in Russia and the English-language story collection Like Water (2019), praised for its exploration of identity, immigration, and belonging. She lives in San Francisco, where she coordinates the San Francisco Writers Workshop and contributes essays and cultural commentary to major American publications.

Sasha Vasilyuk was born in Soviet Crimea and grew up between Ukraine and Russia before immigrating to San Francisco at 13. She holds an MA in Journalism from New York University, and her writing has appeared in major outlets including The New York Times, BBC, and Los Angeles Times. Her debut novel, Your Presence Is Mandatory, won the 2025 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and a Gold Medal at the California Book Awards. She lives in San Francisco with her family.