Michael Idov

Michael Idov (Michael Mark Zilberman) is a Latvian-American novelist, screenwriter and director. ^[1] His works include films Leto (Cannes Main Competition, 2018 ^[2] ) and The Humorist , German television series Deutschland 89 , and novels Ground Up and The Collaborators. ^[3]

Biography

Family and early years

Michael Idov was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1976, to Jewish parents Mark Zilberman and Yelena Zilberman née Idov. His family immigrated into the U.S. as refugees in 1992, and were naturalized in 1998. After graduating from the University of Michigan with a BFA in Dramatic Writing and Film and Video Studies, Idov moved to New York City to start his writing career. His journalistic work, mostly for New York Magazine, garnered three National Magazine Awards and was featured in The Best American Magazine Writing collection ^[4] . His 2009 debut novel, Ground Up, became an unexpected bestseller in Russia in the author's own self-translation, and in 2012, Idov moved to Moscow to work as the editor in chief of GQ Russia. He quit the job and left Russia shortly after the annexation of Crimea in 2014; the experience formed the basis of his 2018 memoir, Dressed Up for a Riot. ^[5]

Private life

Idov lives in Berlin and Los Angeles with wife and frequent screenwriting collaborator Lily and daughter Vera.

Bilingualism

Idov writes in English and Russian, mostly keeping the two bodies of work separate and using the name "Mikhail Idov" (Михаил Идов) for his Russian-language output. In 2009, he became the first Anglophone writer since Vladimir Nabokov to republish a novel in a Russian self-translation ^[6] . Idov's unusual approach to transligualism and identity, which essentially involves maintaining two personas, has attracted some academic attention and analysis ^[7] , with one researcher, Dr. Adrian Wanner, noting his "refus[al] to openly play the 'Russian card,' the 'Jewish card,' or the 'immigrant card' ^[8] ." However, in 2022, responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Idov announced that he will not be writing in Russian as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power. ^[9]

Books

Year	Title	Publisher	Notes
2009	Ground Up	Farrar, Straus & Giroux	novel
2009	Кофемолка (The Coffee Grinder)	Corpus	Self-translation of Ground Up
2011	Made In Russia: Unsung Icons of Soviet Design	Rizzoli	essay collection, edited by
2013	Чёс (The Gig)	Corpus	Collection of original Russian short stories
2018	Dressed Up for a Riot	Farrar, Straus & Giroux	memoir
2024	The Collaborators	Scribner	novel
2026	The Cormorant Hunt	Scribner	novel, sequel to The Collaborators [10]

Filmography

Film

Year	English Title	Original Title	Writer	Director
2015	Soulless 2	Духлесс 2	yes	no
2018	The Humorist	Юморист	yes	yes
2018	Leto	Лето	yes	no
2021	Jetlag	Джетлаг	yes	yes

Television

Year	English Title	Original Title	Creator/Showrunner
2015	Londongrad	Лондонград	yes
2017	The Optimists	Оптимисты	yes
2020	Deutschland 89		no

References

1. "Michael Idov".
2. "Michael IDOV". Festival de Cannes. Retrieved 2025-07-23.
3. "THE COLLABORATORS | Kirkus Reviews".
4. The Best American Magazine Writing 2010. Columbia University Press. 2010-11-17. ISBN   978-0-231-15753-7.
5. "Dressed Up for a Riot". Macmillan Publishers. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
6. "The Act of Self-Translation | Jewish Book Council". www.jewishbookcouncil.org. 2009-12-14. Retrieved 2025-07-28.
7. Wanner, Adrian (2013). "Lolita and Kofemolka: Vladimir Nabokov's and Michael Idov's self-translations from English into Russian". Slavic and East European Journal. 57 (3): 450–464. doi:10.30851/57.3.006. ISSN   0037-6752.
8. Wanner, Adrian (2014). "Moving beyond the Russian-American Ghetto: The Fiction of Keith Gessen and Michael Idov". The Russian Review. 73 (2): 281–296. doi:10.1111/russ.10730. ISSN   1467-9434.
9. ""Language is Never the Enemy": Why I Will Not Write in Russian as Long as Putin is in Power". Vanity Fair . 28 February 2022.
10. Idov, Michael (2026-01-27). The Cormorant Hunt. Scribner. ISBN   978-1-6680-8228-7.