Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Before Brezhnev Died

Before Brezhnev Died

Ciocan, Iulian
Blyth, Alistair Ian

Paperback

Series: Moldovan Literature

General FictionHistorical FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $16.95

ISBN10: 1628973498
ISBN13: 9781628973495
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: May 12 2020
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.50
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.50 Depth: 7.90
Language: English
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.

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