Slezkine reads from his works, is interviewed about his writing process, and answer questions from the audience.

Slezkine, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, is a specialist in late-modern European and Russian history. He has taught at Berkeley since 1992 and has been a recipient of Guggenheim and Fulbright-Hays fellowships.

His book "Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North" (Cornell, 1994) was named best book of the year in 1995 by the American History Association's Pacific Coast Branch. Daniel Orlovsky, writing in Slavic Review, called it "one of the most original contributions to our field in recent years, brilliant in conception and beautifully written with just the right touch of sardonic wit and empathetic wisdom."

Slezkine's most recent book is "The Jewish Century" (Princeton University Press, 2004), a history of 20th-century Russia. He has also edited two other books: "In the Shadow of the Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women From 1917 to the Second World War" (with Sheila Fitzpatrick; Princeton, 2000) and "Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture" (with Galya Diment; St. Martin's Press, 1993).

The Berkeley Writers at Work series provides a forum in which campus authors discuss all aspects of their writing, from gathering material and crafting the framework of a piece of writing, to creating a mood, editing, and revising.

This event took place on March 16, 2005, in the Morrison Library, UC Berkeley.