Maxim D. Shrayer, award-winning author and professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston College, explores the impact of election-year politics and COVID-19 in his new volume of poems titled Of Politics and Pandemics: Songs of a Russian Immigrant. A combination of biting satire and piercing lyricism, Shrayer’s work delivers 36 interconnected poems about despair, hope, love, and loss. Shrayer has authored more than 15 books in English and Russian, including Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story, Yom Kippur in Amsterdam, and the anthology Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature. His works have been translated into nine languages. Shrayer won a 2007 National Jewish Book Award and in 2012 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Read more on BC News.