Het is 1942, de Tweede Wereldoorlog woedt. Pavel Koekotski, vrouwenarts en voorvechter van abortus, redt op de operatietafel het leven van de jonge Jelena. De ontmoeting leidt tot een liefdesrelatie en zelfs tot een huwelijk als Jelenas man aan het front sneuvelt. Pavel, Jelena en haar dochtertje Tanja leven ogenschijnlijk in harmonie. Maar de schuld die Jelena voelt, werkt als een tijdbom. Als haar relatie met Pavel stukloopt door hun uiteenlopende levensvisies, verliest zij het zicht op de reële wereld.
One of Russia’s most renowned literary figures and a Man Booker International Prize nominee, Ludmila Ulitskaya presents what may be her final novel. Jacob’s Ladder is a family saga spanning a century of recent Russian history—and represents the summation of the author’s career, devoted to sharing the absurd and tragic tales of twentieth-century life in her nation. Jumping between the diaries and letters of Jacob Ossetsky in Kiev in the early 1900s and the experiences of his granddaughter Nora in the theatrical world of Moscow in the 1970s and beyond, Jacob’s Ladder guides the reader through some of the most turbulent times in the history of Russia and Ukraine, and draws suggestive parallels between historical events of the early twentieth century and those of more recent memory. Spanning the seeming promise of the prerevolutionary years, to the dark Stalinist era, to the corruption and confusion of the present day, Jacob’s Ladder is a pageant of romance, betrayal, and memory. With a scale worthy of Tolstoy, it asks how much control any of us have over our lives—and how much is in fact determined by history, by chance, or indeed by the genes passed down by the generations that have preceded us into the world.
The Big Green Tent is the kind of book for which the term Russian novel was
invented. A sweeping saga, it tells the story of three school friends who meet
in 1950s Moscow and go on to embody the heroism, folly, compromise, and hope
of the Soviet dissident experience.
A wry, moving and dark story about Russians adrift in New York by award-
winning Ludmila Ultiskaya, hailed by Gary Shteyngart as 'one of the most
important living writers'.
Genja Pirapletschikow, der ohne Vater aufwächst und wegen seines Namens häufig verspottet wird, weiß wenig vom Glück. Erst, als die Nachbarskinder sein Talent entdecken, Tiere und Flugzeuge aus Papier zu basteln, wird Genja zum Baumeister und die Papierwunder werden zum gemeinsamen Spielzeug. Sechs wunderbare Geschichten von der russischen Meistererzählerin über kleine und große Momente, die ein Kinderleben erschüttern oder beglücken können. Mit Bildern von Wolf Erlbruch.
