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A collection of short stories from the Moldovan writer Iulian Ciocan, translated by Alistair Ian Blyth"--
About the author
Iulian Ciocan (b. 1968) is a novelist, literary critic, author, and presenter of a long-running Radio Free Europe broadcast about everyday life and current affairs in the Republic of Moldova. His novels include
Before Brezhnev Died,
The Realm of Sasha Kozak, and
In the Morning the Russians Will Arrive, which together form a trilogy of Moldova past, present, and future, and most recently
The Queen of Hearts.
Summary
The time is the twilight of the decrepit Brezhnev regime, the place, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Moldavia: the “Latin periphery of empire.” A pensioner seeks justice for his dead wife, crushed by a falling crane--the very symbol of the “construction of socialism”--but comes up against hostility from a cynical system at best indifferent, at worst contemptuous of human life. With a keen, Gogolian eye for the grotesque, often squalid, details of everyday life in the USSR, Iulian Ciocan paints darkly humorous but compassionate portraits of Homo sovieticus, from crusty war veterans and lowly collective farm workers to venal Party bigwigs, as each comes to the disturbing realization that the lofty ideals of Soviet society were lies all along. And for idealistic young pioneer Iulian, the biggest disillusionment of all will be the abrupt revelation of Brezhnev’s mortality.
