London, UK. 12th June 2025 – Queen Mary University of London’s ArtsTwo Lecture Theatre became a bilingual echo chamber on Monday night as emerging poet‑novelist Anastasia Dubinina hosted “When Memory Speaks in Two Languages,” an evening dedicated to cross‑cultural verse and spoken reflection.
The event gathered students, staff and members of London’s multilingual writing scene for live readings in English and Russian, followed by an audience workshop on “memory as a drafting tool.” The programme forms part of Queen Mary’s year‑round poetry strand, which has recently showcased writers from Ibiza to Beirut
Dubinina opened with a new cycle of poems that layer urban images from her home city with childhood fragments from Moscow. Each piece was presented first in English, then in Russian, allowing listeners to trace how tone shifts when syntax migrates. A short Q&A revealed the author’s process: “I start with the word that refuses to translate and build the scene around that small resistance,” she explained.
The second half of the programme invited guests to annotate their own memories on colour‑coded index cards (green for taste, blue for sound) before rearranging them into collaborative “memory mosaics.” The exercise echoed Dubinina’s world‑building workshops at Southbank Centre, where she dissects the civic backstories behind her speculative novel Shattered Horizons of Tarveran.
Attendance exceeded the 40‑seat allocation, prompting staff to stream proceedings to an overspill space in the foyer. Dr Andrea Brady of Queen Mary’s English & Drama department praised the format for “demonstrating how code‑switching can illuminate emotional tectonics rather than obscure them”
When Memory Speaks in Two Languages is Dubinina’s latest appearance in a calendar year that already includes a world‑building salon at the Royal Festival Hall and readings at Mile End’s BLOC cultural hub. The 22‑year‑old author has also collected three literary honours within 12 months: the Creativitys UK Award (April 2025) for her genre‑blending fiction, the Stein Arts Award for narrative innovation and last year’s Cultural Russia Award for Literature
“When language changes key, memory changes tempo,” Dubinina noted in her closing remarks, summarising the evening’s theme.
Driven by demand, Dubinina announced a new series of small‑group poetry labs focused on multilingual drafting techniques; dates will appear later this month in the Events section of her website. https://writeranastasiadubinina.com/11‑jun‑2025‑reflecting‑on‑our‑poetry‑evening‑at‑queen‑mary‑university‑writer‑anastasia‑dubinina/