Writing alum Elettra Pauletto '17 recently published a translation of Marzio F. Mian’s award-winning book of nonfiction, Volga Blues, with W.W. Norton & Company.
The book spans an undercover reporting trip along Russia’s Volga river, during which Mian and photographer Alessandro Cosmeli, Vlad their translator, and Katya, Vlad’s girlfriend, gathered firsthand accounts from ordinary Russians regarding the impact of war, isolation, and change of culture on their lives along the Volga. A collage of travelogue, history, and risky undercover reporting, the narrative reveals how little the West knows about modern Russians.
Kirkus Reviews writes, "It’s not a pretty picture, nor is the overall view of life under Putin’s rule, where dissidents, gay men and women, and minorities are oppressed, where right-wing Christianity dominates, and where, one priest confides, no one seems especially afraid of being incinerated in an atomic war."
The New Yorker has named Volga Blues one of their Best Books of 2026 So Far. "Between the river’s source, entrusted to an order of Orthodox nuns, and its southern delta, where caviar bound for the Kremlin is harvested, the author journeys through a defiant country transformed by war, sanctions, and reinvigorated patriotism," reads the review. "Braiding snapshots of the present with history, Mian depicts a country haunted by threats to its national integrity, where people have come to believe that 'questioning their leaders...creates social conflict and exposes the country to foreign occupation'—a tension that, he argues, has arisen in Western democracies as well."
Elettra Pauletto divides her time between writing about her life and work in Africa—including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Senegal—and translating works of fiction and nonfiction from Italian and French into English. In both her writing and translations, she draws heavily on her experience as a former political risk analyst covering Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Her nonfiction essays have appeared in Harper’s, Guernica, River Teeth, and elsewhere. She is the translator of Francesca Fiannone’s The Letter Carrier and Prince: All the Songs, among other books of nonfiction.
