Three Russian writers bring different perspectives to a discussion about Russia and its literature, culture and politics.

Mikhail Shishkin is one of Russia’s greatest contemporary writers and the first person to win all three of Russia’s major literary awards. He is already well known in Europe, and his novel, The Light and the Dark, will see him published for the first time in the English language when it appears in March.

Irina Prokhorova is sister to the Russian billionaire turned independent presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov. She is a cultural historian, literary critic, director of the New Literary Observer magazine and co-founder of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. An English translation of 1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point edited by Prokhorova is published in March.

Novelist Andrei Makine was born in Siberia but writes in French. He has lived in France since being granted political asylum in 1987 and has won the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Medici. His novels have all been translated into English. Although no longer considering himself a Russian, Makine’s latest work, Brief Loves that Live Forever, is a brief love story set in Soviet Russia.

The panel will be chaired by Dr Oliver Ready, research fellow in Russian Society and Culture, at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Russian literary translator.