Award-winning writer Elisa Shua Dusapin visits Bristol, West Kirby, Manchester, London and Bath to discuss her third novel, Vladivostok Circus, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins and published by Daunt Books.

Elisa’s debut novel, Winter in Sokcho, won the Prix Robert Walser, the Prix Régine Desforges and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature, and was shortlisted for the 2021 Scott Moncrieff Prize. Her second novel, The Pachinko Parlour, was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize. She tells us more about Vladivostok Circus. French readers will find the interview in French at the end of the article.

You spent some time in Russia. Tell us about your stay that inspired this story.

In 2018, my partner and I travelled from Porrentruy in Switzerland to Tokyo via Korea by train, Trans-Siberian Railway and boat. The journey took three months and we made many stops in Russia, which I was visiting for the first time. I had always thought that I 'knew' Russia because of its relative geographical proximity and the history we were taught at school... In reality, I experienced one of my biggest cultural shocks there. It upset my writing plans for this novel which was supposed to take place in New York.

The Vladivostok Circus does exist. But it's a cultural complex or theatre. Were you able to visit it?

No, I didn't visit it, because when I was in Vladivostok I had no idea that the story of my novel would take place there. The circus I talk about in my novel is largely inspired by the great circus in Budapest, where I spent several weeks in 2019 for my research in the company of acrobats performing as a Russian Bar trio.

The choice of the Russian Bar scenario addresses the themes of trust, ageing and virtuosity. How did you develop these themes and discover this discipline?

I discovered the discipline through Johnny Gasser, the eldest son of the Gasser family, who founded Cirque Starlight based in Porrentruy in the Swiss Jura. Johnny and his colleagues Yuri Kreer and Kirill Ivanov are world champions in Russian Bar performance. I met the trio by chance during my stopover in Moscow. I was able to watch their training sessions and asked them at length about their story and their interest in the discipline. It was their infinite passion and tenacity that impressed me the most, and made me want to use the Russian Bar as an image in my novel to set the scene for my questioning of human bonds.

If you had to choose one word to evoke Vladivostok Circus, what would it be?

‘Confiance’ (trust). Because the coordination between the acrobats depends on absolute trust to succeed in their act, where the life of the acrobat on the bar is literally at stake because it can only be preserved by perfect understanding between the members of the trio. I found this quest for vital trust between people a very beautiful and powerful metaphor for the kind of trust I try to portray in general in my novels, where my characters always have difficulty really 'meeting' each other.

You will be promoting the translation of Vladivostok Circus in England. How do you approach literary tours to promote the translations of your novels?

Promoting a translated novel is special in the sense that the text has already been written a while ago and I've already talked about it at length in the French-speaking world. The novelty effect comes from the cultural difference, and I'm curious to see how different the questions are generally. This allows me to find a new interest in talking about a text again, by also questioning my relationship with it, which evolves over time.

With thanks to the Astier-Pécher Agency, Editions Zoé and Daunt Books Publishing for facilitating the interview and promoting the book.‍