How spending a year 4,600 miles from home on an isolated Russian peninsula brought an American writer's debut novel to the final round of the National Book Awards

Julia Phillips’ debut novel “Disappearing Earth” is one of five titles on the shortlist for the 2019 National Book Award in fiction.
Phillips spent a college semester studying abroad in Moscow before receiving a Fulbright scholarship to spend a year in Kamchatka, the remote peninsula in far-eastern Russia.
The novel is set in the Kamchatka capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where two young girls go missing on a summer afternoon. It is told, over the course of one year, through 12 female characters’ points of view.
In a recent sit-down conversation, Phillips discussed the art of writing about shock, what drew her to Russia, and read more >>>
Source : BusinessInsider.Com

How spending a year 4,600 miles from home on an isolated Russian peninsula brought an American writer’s debut novel to the final round of the National Book Awards