Илья Данишевский

Ilya Danishevsky was born in Moscow in 1990. A poet and writer working at the intersection of poetry and prose, he has built his literature from the outset as a conversation about the body, vulnerability, experiences of violence, same-sex love, and the impossibility of finding “normal” language to describe traumatic experiences.

He graduated from the Literary Institute, studied at the Russian State University for the Humanities, and headed the publishing project “Angedonia,” which published books devoted in one way or another to sexuality, the nature of political power, ideology, the conflict between the individual and totalitarian society, and the history of Russian protest.

In 2019–2020, Ilya Danishevsky curated the literary program at the Voznesensky Center and, together with Maria Stepanova and Lev Oborin, published the poetry series Centrifuge.

He collaborated with the Colta portal, for which he wrote reviews of books and films, and also conducted extensive interviews with Salman Rushdie, Michael Cunningham, Vincent Djot, Matvey Yankelevich, June Li, Emma Cline, Sergio De La Pava, and others.

Author of the books Tenderness for the Dead (2014), Mannelig in Chains (2018), Damocles' Techno (2024), and The Bear and the Pendulum (2025). Finalist for the Andrei Bely and Arkady Dragomoshchenko awards, participant in the International Poetry Biennale, scholarship holder at the Schloss Wiepersdorf creative residence.

Danishevsky's poetry and prose have been published in magazines such as NLO, Vozdukh, Novy Mir, Polutona, Zerkalo, syg.ma, ROAR, and others. His works have been translated into English, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Spanish, and Greek. Since 2022, he has been living in Cologne, Germany.

In his works, Danishevsky explores themes of violence, distorted communication, the body and sexuality, as well as the clash between the personal and the totalitarian.

His debut novel, Tenderness for the Dead, is a poststructuralist work about the trauma of consumer culture, the futility of historical memory, and the toxicity of relationships with one's own body. Throughout the novel, the author engages in a rich dialogue with the modernist canon, from Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf to Gabrielle Witkop.

Danishevsky's second major work, Mannelig in Chains, is a complex blend of poetry and prose; it is a story of same-sex love against a backdrop of growing political tension and the anticipation of a totalitarian turn in Russia.

The third novel, Damocles Techno, was published by Freedom Letters Publishing. Inspired by Tarot cards and predictions of a grim future, the novel explores war, exile, and man's confrontation with great historical forces in a fairy tale genre that is both simple and uncompromising.

The fourth book, The Bear and the Pendulum, is also a blend of poetry and prose, a story of people who have fled various wars and are trying to find refuge in search of love and identity, whose illusory lives are shattered by the phantasmagoria of reality and poetry, combining political relevance and human intimacy.

Илья Данишевский в разговоре с Николаем Александровым о книге «Дамоклово техно» и эмиграции

Писатель Илья Данишевский гость YouTube-канала Геннадия Чернова «Летопись культуры»

Техно живых и мёртвых: о романе Ильи Данишевского «Дамоклово техно». syg.ma

Кто убивает детей? Илья Данишевский – о книге «Дамоклово техно»

It was you who chose to kill. Olga Balla-Gertman's review of Ilya Danishevsky's book “Damocles Techno”