Background
Ingrid Bengis was born on September 14, 1944, in New York City, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Leonid and Maria Bengis.
New York, NY 10027, United States
Ingrid Bengis got her degree from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature.
Ingrid Bengis
Ingrid Bengis
Ingrid Bengis
(A Russian American writer catapults herself into the mael...)
A Russian American writer catapults herself into the maelstrom of Russian life at a time of seismic change for both The daughter of Russian émigrés, Ingrid Bengis grew up wondering whether she was American or, deep down, "really Russian." In 1991, naïvely in love with Russia and Russian literature, she settled in St. Petersburg, where she was quickly immersed in "catastroika," a period of immense turmoil that mirrored her own increasingly complex and contradictory experience. Bengis's account of her involvement with Russia is heightened by her involvement with B, a Russian whose collapsing marriage, paralleling the collapse of the Soviet Union, produces a situation in which "anything could happen." Their relationship reflects the social tumult, as well as the sometimes dangerous consequences of American "good intentions." As Bengis takes part in Russian life-becoming a reluctant entrepreneur, undergoing surgery in a St. Petersburg hospital, descending into a coal mine-she becomes increasingly aware of its Dostoevskian duality, never more so than when she meets the impoverished, importuning great-great-granddaughter of the writer himself. Beneath the seismic shifting remains a centuries-old preoccuption with "the big questions": tradition and progress, destiny and activism, skepticism and faith. With its elaborate pattern of digression and its eye for the revealing detail, Bengis's account has the hypnotic intimacy of a late-night conversation in a Russian kitchen, where such questions are perpetually being asked.
https://www.amazon.com/Metro-Stop-Dostoevsky-Travels-Russian-ebook/dp/B0057QUULG/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Metro+Stop+Dostoevsky%3A+Travels+in+Russian+Time&qid=1610695747&s=books&sr=1-1
2003
Ingrid Bengis was born on September 14, 1944, in New York City, New York, United States. She was the daughter of Leonid and Maria Bengis.
Ingrid Bengis received her degree from Columbia University in English and Comparative Literature.
In 1972 Ingrid Bengis won national acclaim as an author and feminist thinker for her autobiographical tract. Combat in the Erogenous Zone. Nominated for the National Book Award. Combat in the Erogenous Zone examines Bengis's life experiences in a male-dominated society, exploring issues of "man-hating," lesbianism, and romantic love. With its analytical and philosophical approach to contemporary topics, Bengis’s account stood out among contemporary feminist works for its fresh and original voice. Combat in the Erogenous Zone, while recognized as a feminist text, departs from contemporary feminists in its personal approach.
In 1977 Bengis returned to the literary world with the publication of her first novel, I Have Come Here to Be Alone. Set in Greece, it tells the story of a young woman named Lola who has an affair with a married European man. In the ensuing years, Bengis took a break from the literary world. She returned to writing with the book Metro Stop Dostoevsky: Travels in Russian Time, which explores attitudes and relationships during the tumultuous fall of communism in Russia in 1991. Bengis herself is Russian-American by birth, and in the 1980s she began traveling to her ancestral country to learn more about the culture.
She also created and ran a seafood business (Ingrid Bengis Seafood, based in Stonington, Maine) for almost 30 years purveying to the most celebrated chefs in the country, including Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Dan Barber among others. Dividing her time for years between New York City, Maine, and Saint-Petersburg, Russia, she has been a Fulbright scholar, a university professor at St. Petersburg State University, and a creator of the Island Culinary and Ecological Center.
(A Russian American writer catapults herself into the mael...)
2003
Quotations:
"For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change."
"You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours."
Ingrid Bengis met her future husband, Edouard Palei in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1998. They were happily married for 19 years. She had a stepson, Paul.