Maxim D. Shrayer
Current City, State, Country
Birth City, State, Country
Biography
Maxim D. Shrayer, bilingual author, scholar and translator, was born in Moscow in 1967 to a
Jewish-Russian family with Ukrainian and Lithuanian roots and spent over eight years as a
refusenik. He and his parents, the late writer David Shrayer-Petrov ז״ל and the translator
Emilia Shrayer, left the USSR and immigrated to the United States in 1987. Shrayer received a
PhD from Yale University in 1995. He a professor at Boston College, where he cofounded the
Jewish Studies Program. Shrayer has authored and edited more than thirty books
of poetry, nonfiction, criticism, fiction, and translations. His poetry collections include the
Russian-language volumes Tabun nad lugom (Herd above the Meadow, New York
1990), Amerikanskii romans (American Romance, Moscow 1994), N’iukheivenskie sonety (New
Haven Sonnets, Providence, 1998), Stikhi iz aipada (Poems from the iPad, Tel Aviv, 2022),
and Voina (War, Tel Aviv, 2025), the English-language Of Politics and Pandemics (Boston,
2020), Kinship (Georgetown, KY, 2023), and Zion Square (Teaneck, NJ, 2025), and the bilingual
volume Parallel Letters/Parallel’noe pis’mo (Zug, Switzerland, 2025). Among Shrayer’s other
books are the literary memoirs Waiting for America, Leaving Russia, and Immigrant Baggage, and
the collections Yom Kippur in Amsterdam and A Russian Immigrant: Three Novellas. Shrayer
edited the anthology Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature. He is the recipient of a number of
awards and fellowships, including a 2007 National Jewish Book Award and a 2012
Guggenheim Fellowship. Shrayer’s publications have been translated into thirteen
languages, most recently Nabokov e o Judaísmo, published in Brazil in 2023. He lives in
Massachusetts with his wife, Dr. Karen E. Lasser, a medical researcher and physician, their
daughters, Mira Isabella and Tatiana Rebecca, and their silver Jewdle, Stella.
What is the relationship between Judaism and/or Jewish culture and your poetry?
I have written extensively about growing up a Jewish refusenik, about Jewish roots in Eastern Europe, about witnessing the Shoah, and about immigrant Jewish identity in the USA and Israel. I am a citizen of both USA and Israel.
Published Works
Poetry in English
Zion Square (Teaneck, NY: Ben Yehuda Press, 2025)
Kinship (Georgetown, KY: Finishing Line Press, 2023)
Of Politics and Pandemics: Songs of a Russian Immigrant (Boston: M-Graphics Publishing, 2020)
Bilingual Poetry
Parallel Letters/Parallel’noe Pis’mo (Zug, Switzerland: Sandermoen Publishing, 2025)
Poetry in Russian
Война (War) (Tel Aviv: Babel Bookstore and Publishing, 2025)
Стихи из айпада (Poems from the iPad) (Tel Aviv: Babel Bookstore and Publishing, 2022)
Американский романс (American Romance) (Moscow: Russlit, 1994)
Ньюхейвенские сонеты (New Haven Sonnets) (Providence, RI: APKA Publishers, 1998)
Табун над лугом (A Herd above the Meadow) (New York: Gnosis Press, 1990)
Prose in English
Immigrant Baggage: Morticians, Purloined Diaries, and Other Theatrics of Exile (Boston: Cherry
Orchard Books, 2023)
A Russian Immigrant: Three Novellas (Boston: Cherry Orchard Books, 2019)
Soviet Phantoms Vacation in Chile. A Family Chronicle (Brookline: Ladispoli Books, 2019)
With or Without You: The Prospect for Jews in Today’s Russia (Boston: Academic Studies Press,2017)
Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2013)
Yom Kippur in Amsterdam: Stories (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2009)
Waiting for America: A Story of Emigration (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2007)
Criticism and Biography
Nabokov e o Judaísmo: História e Memória antes e depois do Holocausto (São Paulo: Editora
Recriar, 2023)
Антисемитизм и упадок русской деревенской школы: Астафьев, Белов,
Распутин (Antisemitism and the Decline of Russian Village Prose: Astafiev, Belov, Rasputin) (St.
Petersburg: Academic Studies Press/BiblioRosica, 2020)
Бунин и Набоков: История соперничества (Bunin and Nabokov. A History of Rivalry)
(Moscow: Alpina Non-fikshn, 2014; 2nd. ed. 2015; 3rd, expanded ed. 2019; 4th, expanded ed.
2023)
I SAW IT: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah (Boston: Academic Studies
Press, 2013)
Genrikh Sapgir: Avant-garde Classic (with David Shrayer-Petrov) (St. Petersburg: Dmitrij
Bulanin, 2004 [in Russian]. 2nd., corrected edition St. Petersburg: Bibliorossica, 2016. 3rd,
corrected edition. Ekaterinburg: Izdatel’skie resheniia; Ridero, 2017)
Nabokov: Themes and Variations (St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2000 [in Russian])
Russian Poet/Soviet Jew: The Legacy of Eduard Bagritskii (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000)
The World of Nabokov’s Stories (University of Texas Press, 1998)
Anthologies
An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry,
1801-2001 (M. E. Sharpe, 2007)
Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature. An Anthology (Academic Studies Press, 2018)
Edited Works
Nabokov on the Heights: New Studies from Boston College; edited by Maxim D. Shrayer (Academic
Studies Press, 2024)
Studies in the History of Russian-Israeli Literature; Edited by Roman Katsman and Maxim D.
Shrayer (Academic Studies Press, 2023)
Ocherki po istorii russko-izrail’skoi literatury; edited by Roman Katsman and Maxim D. Shrayer
(Academic Studies Press, 2023)
The Parallel Universes of David Shrayer-Petrov: A Collection Published on the Occasion of the
Writer’s 85th Birthday; edited by Roman Katsman, Maxim D. Shrayer, Klavdia Smola (Academic
Studies Press, 2021)
Parallel’nye vselennye Davida Shraera-Petrova. Sbornik statei i materialov k 85-letiiu pisatelia; edited by Roman Katsman, Maxim D. Shrayer, Klavdia Smola (St. Petersburg:
Academic Studies Press/Bibliorossica, 2021)
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Video Reading
Current Title
Education
Moscow State University
Brown University
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Yale University