| Madonna from Russia Contributor(s): Druzhnikov, Yuri (Author) |
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ISBN: 0720612551 ISBN-13: 9780720612554 Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers OUR PRICE: $22.46 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 2006 Annotation: Lily is a young prostitute working the streets of Petrograd who is recruited by the Bolsheviks to a higher category of working woman to service the Communist elite. Following a fortuitous marriage to Andrei Bourbon, poet, Futurist and artistic colleague of Malevich, Mayakovsky, et al, Lily's own poems are ushered to the official Communist children's newspaper. With an airbrushed and 'revolutionised' biography created for Lily, the poems are immediately published as children's books. Following Andrei Bourbon's disappearance during Stalin's purges, Lily becomes poet laureate and an ideal symbol of the Soviet era. After further marriages and the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship, Lily escapes Russia for the USA, where we meet her for the first time, engaged to a naC/ve American communist and starting all over again--"at the age of ninety-six. A contemporary picaresque novel, Madonna from Russia is fiction with Druzhnikov's unique combination of satire, humor and documentary twist. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Women - Fiction | Cultural Heritage |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Physical Information: 0.78" H x 6" W x 8.8" (0.95 lbs) 240 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Russia |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The picaresque story of 96-year-old Lily Bourbon, who marries her way from prostitute to Poet Laureate in the USSR and finds a new life in the U.S.Lily was a beautiful young prostitute recruited by the Bolsheviks to service the Communist elite. As a result of a fortuitous marriage to Andrei Bourbon, famous poet, futurist and artistic associate of Malevich and Mayakovsky, her own verse is delivered to the official Communist newspapers, together with an entirely invented revolutionary biography. Before long, she is made poet laureate and feted as an idealized symbol of the Soviet era, while Andrei, after being incarcerated in a mental hospital by Lily, disappears in the purges. After the collapse of several marriages--and the Soviet Union--she leaves Russia for the United States. This is where we meet her, still striking-looking and engaged to a naive American, starting out again at the age of ninety-six. Following further bizarre and picaresque adventures, she reaches for her greatest honour yet--to be "Queen Lily the First" of the newly created island state of Grande Bravo. |
