Wonderland meets the communist manifesto.Book IWhere can you run away to at 45? Ephine, a middle-aged, peri-menopausal, empty-nester stereotype of disenchantment screams at her energy-vampire co-workers, sets off the fire alarm, and quits her soul-sucking office job in cinematic defiance. Reclaiming her rebellious, teenage spark, she squats in an abandoned church and climbs on a new man until she falls through a door to follow Alice, Anya and Simone as they search for

Ukrainka is the poignant and compelling story of Zorya Stelma, a young woman from a small village in Ukraine, born during the final years of the Soviet Union. Growing up amidst the struggles of a newly independent Ukraine, she longed for a life beyond the confines of her rural surroundings, dreaming of the vast and mysterious world that awaited her.Years later, we find Zorya in the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong, having traveled there to meet a man she met online...

Ukrainka is the poignant and compelling story of Zorya Stelma, a young woman from a small village in Ukraine, born during the final years of the Soviet Union. Growing up amidst the struggles of a newly independent Ukraine, she longed for a life beyond the confines of her rural surroundings, dreaming of the vast and mysterious world that awaited her.Years later, we find Zorya in the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong, having traveled there to meet a man she met online...

A remarkable memoir of living in the Soviet Union and working as a literary translator.In the early twentieth century, Lilianna Lungina was a Russian Jew born to privilege, spending her childhood in Germany, France, and Palestine. But when she was thirteen, her parents moved to the USSR—where Lungina became witness to many of the era's greatest upheavals.Exiled during World War II, dragged to KGB headquarters to report on her friends, and subjected to her n...

**Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for AutobiographyThe prizewinning memoir of one of the world’s great writers, about coming of age as an enemy of the people and finding her voice in Stalinist Russia**Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel—the setting of the New York Times bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles—Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were ...

As war crimes prosecutions seize Australia, Fiona Kovalenko discovers that her own family is implicated in the darkest events of the twentieth century. This is their story.First published under an assumed identity, The Hand that Signed the Paper remains one of the most celebrated and controversial books in recent Australian literature. With a new introduction by the author, it continues to raise urgent questions about history, responsibility, and truth.“Astonishing...

The first English-language collection of short stories by Russia's greatest contemporary author, Mikhail Shishkin, the only author to win all three of Russia's most prestigious literary awards.Often included in discussions of Nobel Prize contenders, Shishkin is a master prose writer in the breathtakingly beautiful style of the greatest Russian authors, known for complex, allusive novels about universal and emotional themes. Shishkin's stories read like modern versions of the eterna...

  Ilya Repin (1844 - 1930) was a Russian painter, master of portrait, historical, and scenes from everyday life. He was also Academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts, memoirist, author of several essays, compiled a book of memoirs "Far close", professor and rector (1898-1899) of the Academy of Fine Arts. Among his disciples was B. Kustodiev , M. Grabar , M. Kulikov , F. A. Maljavin  and V. A. Serov.

An ex-con on compassionate release revisits his old haunts, only to feel dispossessed by how much the city has changed...The son of political dissidents in Soviet-era Prague is condemned to a life of menial jobs, like working at a local abattoir, unable to imagine his prospects ever improving...A young shop assistant in a tourist-friendly antique shop imagines what Prague would now look like if Czechoslovakia had stood up to the Nazis...The stories collected in this...

An unsuccessful writer and an inveterate alcoholic, Boris Alikhanov has recently divorced his wife Tatyana, and he is running out of money. The prospect of a summer job as a tour guide at the Pushkin Hills Preserve offers him hope of regaining some balance in life as his wife makes plans to emigrate to the West with their daughter Masha, but during Alikhanov's stay in the rural estate of Mikhaylovskoye, his life continues to unravel.Populated with unforgettable characters—including...

In 2004 I compiled a book entitled "I Remember It Well", comprised of letters home, travel essays and extracts from my diaries covering a twenty month period, following the completion of my university studies, from 1965-1967, during which time I hitchhiked, youth-hosteled and worked my way throughout most of Western Europe. I concluded that document by noting that over the intervening years I continued to travel abroad and indicated that I was planning a five week trip to Australia in Nove...

Women's prose writing has exploded on the literary scene in Ukraine just prior to and following Ukrainian independence in 1991. Over the past two decades scores of fascinating new women authors have emerged. These authors write in a wide variety of styles and genres including short stories, novels, essays, and new journalism. In the collection you will find: realism, magical realism, surrealism, the fantastic, deeply intellectual writing, newly discovered feminist perspectives, philosophic...