Maxim D. Shrayer

discusses

Leaving Russia:
A Jewish Story

This event includes a book signing

Date

Feb
12
Wednesday
February 12, 2014
8:00 PM ET

Location

Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Tickets

This event is free; no tickets are required.

Harvard Book Store is pleased to welcome award-winning author and Boston College professor MAXIM D. SHRAYER for a discussion of his book Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story.

Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story is a memoir of coming of age and struggling to leave the USSR. Shrayer chronicles the triumphs and humiliations of a Soviet childhood and expresses the dreams and fears of a Jewish family that never gave up its hopes for a better life. Narrated in the tradition of Tolstoy's confessional trilogy and Nabokov's autobiography, this is a searing account of the KGB's persecution of refuseniks, a poet's rebellion against totalitarian culture, and Soviet fantasies of the West during the Cold War. Shrayer's remembrances are set against a rich backdrop of politics and ethnic conflict on the brink of the Soviet empire's collapse. His moving story offers generous doses of humor and tenderness, counterbalanced with longing and violence. Leaving Russia is a love story in which a young Jew's love is unrequited and his heart is forever broken by his homeland.

"In this book, Shrayer describes an emotional journey—not just from Russia to America, but from spiritual darkness into light. The book also explains why Jews felt forced to leave a country they loved, when it grew clear that country would never, could never, love them in return." —Wyatt Andrews, CBS News National Correspondent

"An exquisite memoir...An unforgettable first-person account of Jewish life and Jewish suffering during the final years of Russian Communism." —Jonathan D. Sarna, author of When General Grant Expelled the Jews

Maxim D. Shrayer
Maxim D. Shrayer

Maxim D. Shrayer

Maxim D. Shrayer, bilingual author, scholar, and translator, is a Professor at Boston College. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Shrayer’s many books include Waiting for America, A Russian Immigrant, and Of Politics and Pandemics. Shrayer’s works have been translated into ten languages. Visit his website at www.shrayer.com

Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Walking from the Harvard Square T station: 2 minutes

As you exit the station, reverse your direction and walk east along Mass. Ave. in front of the Cambridge Savings Bank. Cross Dunster St. and proceed along Mass. Ave for three more blocks. You will pass Au Bon Pain, JP Licks, and TD Bank. Harvard Book Store is located at the corner of Mass. Ave. and Plympton St.

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