Book description
The Naked World begins with Mashinski’s birth:“Stalin had been dead for 5 years 1 month and 4 days.” The concluding notes tell us that currently “38% of Russians consider Stalin the greatest man in history.” The eerily exact figures underline the survivor’s dilemma: do I live in the past and…
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Why read it?
1 author picked The Naked World as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Part poetry, part flash fiction; part memoir, part imagination; part history, part fantasy. The Naked World is like a dream, images, and snatches of phrases wrestle with fact and trauma. It’s a story of survival, it’s a story of suffering. It’s a story of immigration, it’s a story of remaining stuck. It’s ephemeral and it stays with you. Did it happen to you? To someone else? To all of us?
From Alina's list on The best Soviet historical fiction which skips the cliches.
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