Stephen Fry introduces this film with the story of a passionate affair: I think I was about fourteen years old when I first read Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. It was the beginning of a life-long love affair with great Russian literature: Tolstoys War and Peace, Anna Karenina… Like many youthful infatuations, Fry moved on to other interests, and lost touch with Russian writing. He was not alone. After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, we in the West stopped reading Russian literature. But that does not mean that the Russians stopped writing. The programme introduces us to six of the biggest stars of Russian literature, their works, and shows a side of today's Russia that viewers do not normally get a chance to see. New works – including original English translations – are read by Fry, who is inserted into award-winning original animations of these fictional worlds.

• FRY'S DELIGHT: Stephen Fry is a lover of language and the written word. Who better to examine Russian literature and its fresh new horizons which is influencing the world. Audiences love Fry for his ability to make any subject entertaining and enriching. They learn without even knowing it!
• RE-CONNECT: After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, we in the West stopped reading Russian literature. But that does not mean that the Russians stopped writing. Fry was an avid reader at age 14 but lost touch with Russian writing. Now, he is ready to re-connect.
• THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING: After a long period in which the cultural heirs of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky vanished from view, they have again found their voice – not with ponderously heavy 19th Century door-stoppers, but with fresh new writing unlike anything we've seen before.

STEPHEN FRY: TODAY'S RUSSIA – A LITERARY LANDSCAPE will appeal to audiences who enjoyed STEPHEN FRY AND THE GUTENBERG PRESS.