On the Way to Red Square - Softcover

Rodrigues, Julieta Almeida

 
9780974493480: On the Way to Red Square

Synopsis

On the Way to Red Square is a compelling collection of short stories set in Soviet Moscow in the 1980's. Julieta Rodrigues meshes fictional personal subject matter with social and political issues to produce a moving and thought-provoking book. "On the Way to Red Square exceeds the boundaries it has created for itself: between the private and the political, the everyday and the theatrical, love and alienation, informers and their victims, life and death, joy and sadness, Russians and foreigners, 'us' versus 'them.' The ineffable language of pain and inquisitive openness and the resulting vision of the stern Soviet Moscow is hauntingly revealing, at the same time the distant and the close glance that Victor Shklovsky aptly defines." -Olga Meerson, Professor of Russian, Georgetown University "Julieta Rodrigues has neatly captured the gray, gritty, every-day essence of life in the Soviet Union that I saw in the early 1980's. From the snowy and dismal streets to the bathhouses and garish hotels, she has preserved lost fragments of communist Moscow in her amber stories." - Jon Purnell, Tashkent, Uzbekistan "In a book as teeming with characters as a 19th century Russian novel, but entirely modern in its concerns, we accompany Laura, narrator and protagonist, through gripping and candid stories: the angry young man in 'Caged,' living in a cramped collective where people must line up to use the toilet; the disappointed, power-abusing official, Lyudmila, in 'Glass Silhouettes,' obsessed with her collection of glass miniatures; and, in the last story, 'New Year's Eve at the Praga,' an enigmatic blonde dancing alone, as intriguing and ambiguous to the little band of Americans as is Moscow itself. Rodrigues reminds me of Chekhov. - Robbie Murphy, Best American Short Stories (under the name of Roberta Gupta)

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Synopsis

On the Way to Red Square is a compelling collection of short stories set in Soviet Moscow in the 1980's. Julieta Rodrigues meshes fictional subject matter with social and political issues to produce a moving and thought-provoking book. Through her use of apt metaphors, meticulous details, and honest, unflinching emotion, Rodrigues unfolds the story of a diplomatic couple, Laura and Keith, trying to make peace with themselves and the country that hosts them. It is as if the Cold War is going on both inside and outside the walls in which they live. It is hard to put this book down, easy to keep reading these terse yet abundantly meaningful stories. The setting may be inimical and mysterious to many readers but the human dilemmas must be familiar to all.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780976704270: On the Way to Red Square

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0976704277 ISBN 13:  9780976704270
Publisher: Nap/Scarith, 2006
Softcover