Mikhail Iossel

Mikhail Iossel talks with Pamela about growing up in the former Soviet Union, becoming an underground writer in a KGB-monitored group, and the lasting damage of the Trump presidency on the reputation of America.

Mikhail was born in Leningrad in the ‘50s. The son of a prominent scientist, his application for leaving his country was refused and his education all but wasted when he quit his engineering job to become a security guard at an amusement park. At the age of 30, he finally made it to the US just before the collapse of the Communist Bloc. Despite his rudimentary English, he was accepted to study Creative Writing at the University of New Hampshire and before long, his short stories were published in literary journals and he assembled his first collection, Every Hunter Wants to Know. Today he is a professor at Concordia University and a contributor to magazines like the New Yorker. He is also a founder and Creative Director of the Summer Literary Seminars international program where friends such as George Saunders and Francine Prose have acted as faculty.

Listen to here to our lively and fascinating conversation.