Omschrijving
Draws the reader into the wild euphoria of the Russian Revolution, as art and reality are bent to radically new purposes. This title takes the reader along to the dramatic final confrontation between writers and engineers that signalled the end of the Soviet empire.
A compelling combination of literary criticism and travelogue
Westerman is a very fine writer and his stories, characters and digressions are as delicately wrought as a watch mechanism. Like Bruce Chatwin and the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, he has elevated the authorial journalist-traveller into a brilliant, magic storyteller; like them he seeks out the smaller, human-sized epics that play out their tragedies against the backdrop of history
Westerman completes a portrait at once engaging and devastating. As such, it comes closer than any conventional literary history to defining the elusive Socialist Realism.
An extraordinarily compelling, imaginative and subtle mixture of history, literary criticism and travelogue
Brilliant, illuminating and rich
Frank Westerman was born in 1964 and lived and worked in Moscow from 1997 to 2002 as correspondent for the leading Dutch NRC Handelsblad newspaper. Westerman is the author of five highly praised books. His work has been published in more than ten languages and has won many prizes.