#BookReview The Ukrainian/Russian writer Konstantin Paustovsky is described in the introduction this way:
“He was one of the few honest and uncompromised writers of the Soviet period. He managed not to join the Communist Party, to sign his name to any denunciation of another writer, or to sell out his talent to curry favour with Soviet officialdom.”
Earlier this year NYRB published this collection of the first three books of his memoirs in a new translation by Douglas Smith.
Nature and language may have been the two greatest loves of Paustovsky’s life; his descriptions of Kyiv in autumn, his love of being by the sea, and connection with poetry are marvelous.
Reading his eyewitness account of what Ukraine went through after WW1 during the civil war made me appreciate even more what the Ukrainian people have gone through during their traumatic history.
It’s impossible to describe all the riches of the stories and writing this volume contains, a stunning book and unforgettable reading experience, I wanted it to go on for another 800 pages.
