The Freedom Factory

The Freedom Factory tells the story of a real weapons factory in Saint Petersburg, recounted in the form of monologues collected from its anonymized workers, managers, and engineers. The Freedom Factory is not exactly realism: it combines poetry and documentary in unique proportion to convey the atmosphere of the absurd, harsh, and magnetic factory floor. Sometimes the narrative comes very close to everyday speech, sometimes it evolves into lyricism or grotesque humor, but it always remains sincere. The Freedom Factory recounts life stories and love stories, military secrets and anecdotes, work and leisure, as the many voices of the factory merge into a chorus.

Ksenia Buksha was born in Saint Petersburg. She graduated from Saint Petersburg State University, where she studied economics. She has worked as a journalist, copywriter, and translator. She debuted as a fiction writer in 2001. In 2014, The Freedom Factory won the National Bestseller award and was a finalist for the Big Book Award. Ksenia Buksha’s work has been translated into Polish and English.

Dr. Anne Fisher holds a Ph.D. in Russian Literature from The University of Michigan. She has taught Russian in several institutes of higher learning and is now a professional translator and interperter living in California. Her first major translation, Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers, was shortlisted for the Rossica Prize in 2007 for Excellence in Russian to English Literary Translation. She has since gone on to translate other Ilf and Petrov works such as The Little Golden Calf, which was awarded the 2011 AATSEEL Book Prize for Best Translation into English, and The Twelve Chairs.