Elif Batuman has written about Thai boxing, Russian ice palaces, and comedy traffic school for The New Yorker. She contributes to London Review of Books, n+1, and the Nation. She is the author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them and a recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. She will speak in Devlin, 101, on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series