http://www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com/2009/11/27/my-year-in-books-2/ Twisted by Jessica Zafra - Pumping irony since 1994 Sat, 11 Feb 2012 12:20:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://www.jessicarulestheuniverse.com/2009/11/27/my-year-in-books-2/comment-page-1/#comment-43174 jeg Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:38:29 +0000 http://jessicarulestheuniverse.com/?p=5211#comment-43174 I found Anatoly Kuznetzov's Babi Yar in a bargain bin and brought it with me to read on a trip to China. His retelling -- he called it a documentary novel -- of his experiences as a kid in Nazi-occupied Kiev was compelling and told with objective restraint even though he lived through that hell. I was rooting for the Russians and cursing the Nazis til I realized that just a decade before, Stalin blockaded the Ukraine and starved to death eleven million Ukrainians. Kuznetzov's praises for Stalin's Soviets rang hollow after that. I found Anatoly Kuznetzov’s Babi Yar in a bargain bin and brought it with me to read on a trip to China. His retelling — he called it a documentary novel — of his experiences as a kid in Nazi-occupied Kiev was compelling and told with objective restraint even though he lived through that hell. I was rooting for the Russians and cursing the Nazis til I realized that just a decade before, Stalin blockaded the Ukraine and starved to death eleven million Ukrainians. Kuznetzov’s praises for Stalin’s Soviets rang hollow after that.

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