"Sergei Lebedev's debut novel is a haunting tale about the loss of national memory and its moral consequences for the individual.  The brilliant translation by Antonina W. Bouis captures the evocative beauty of the poetic first-person narration and renders it into memorable English."

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Solomon Volkov, author of Shostakovich and Stalin, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History, and The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn