Keorapetse Kgositsile and Lesego Rampolokeng have writing and performance styles which manage to be strikingly different yet complimentary. I've never seen such an effective event contrasting these two very different South African poets.

I'm very excited about this event: five young, diverse Russian writers born after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Unfortunately the five writers, who represent several regions and whose work crosses multiple genres, barely get a chance to speak, much less read their work. The event is completely dominated by the chair and publisher of the book containing their work, Natasha Perova, and director of the ten-years-running Debut Prize, Olga Slovinkova.

According to DBC Pierre, his new novel Lights Out in Wonderland is the third in a very loose trilogy, each forming an image of the first decade of the millennium. You've heard of the other two.

Since Anna Politkovskaya's appearance at the Edinburgh International Book Festival the year before she was shot and killed near the lift in her Moscow apartment building, there has been an annual event in Edinburgh dedicated to her work.

Two first-time novelists and blogger favourites, Emily Mackie and Robert Williams, have taken over the Writers' Retreat. In case you were wondering, this is great news.

Nicolai Lilin's story of hunting and tribalism under an authoritarian state draws a strange crowd who seem more interested in what sort of bullets he's carrying and where his tattoos are, than in the content of his writing.

When I moved to Moscow last year, most of my knowledge of Russia came from Helen Dunmore's historical novel The Seige, set in wartime Leningrad (now St Petersburg). This might not seem like much to start a relationship with a country, but the novel gave me the advantage of knowing something of the personal lives and habits (albeit fictional) of Russian people, underneath the impassive faces on the Metro.

In retrospect, the fact the event showcasing the work of the winners of The Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition occurred the evening before Mr Morgan's death at the age of ninety becomes an excellent tribute to the national makar, and certainly one of the greatest poets in Scottish history.