Waiting For America: A Story of Emigration (Library of Modern Jewish Literature)
By
Maxim D. Shrayer (Author) Herman R. Goldberg (Author)
Hardback
Available / dispatched within 1 - 4 weeks
Quantity
Description
In 1987, a young Jewish man, the central figure in this captivating book, leaves Moscow for good with his parents. They celebrate their freedom in opulent Vienna and spend two months in Rome and the coastal resort of Ladispoli. While waiting in Europe for a U.S. refugee visa, the book's twenty-year-old poet quenches his thirst for sexual and cultural discovery. Through his colorful Austrian and Italian misadventures, he experiences the shock, thrill, and anonymity of being in a Western democracy, running into European roadblocks while shedding Soviet social taboos. As he anticipates entering a new life in America, he movingly describes the baggage that exiles bring with them, from the inescapable family ties to the sweet cargo of memory. An emigration story, ""Waiting for America"" explores the rapid expansion of identity at the cusp of a new, American life. Told in a revelatory first-person narrative, ""Waiting for America"" is also a vibrant love story, in which the romantic protagonist is torn between Russian and Western women. Filled with poignant humor and reinforced by hope and idealism, the author's confessional voice carries the reader in the same way one is carried through literary memoirs like Tolstoy's ""Childhood"", ""Boyhood"", ""Youth"", Hemingway's ""Moveable Feast"", or Nabokov's ""Speak"", ""Memory"". Babel, Sebald, and Singer - all transcultural masters of identity writing - are the coordinates that help to locate Waiting for America on the greater map of literature.
About the Author
Maxim D. Shrayer's books include The World of Nabokov's Stories, Russian Poet/Soviet Jew, and three collections of Russian poetry. A bilingual author and translator, Shrayer recently edited An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature. Shrayer is professor of Russian and English and chair of the Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages at Boston College. He lives in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, with his wife and daughter.
More Details
- Contributor: Maxim D. Shrayer
- Imprint: Syracuse University Press
- ISBN13: 9780815608936
- Number of Pages: 225
- Packaged Dimensions: 163x235x21mm
- Packaged Weight: 473
- Format: Hardback
- Publisher: Syracuse University Press
- Release Date: 2007-10-30
- Series: Library of Modern Jewish Literature
- Binding: Hardback
- Biography: Maxim D. Shrayer's books include The World of Nabokov's Stories, Russian Poet/Soviet Jew, and three collections of Russian poetry. A bilingual author and translator, Shrayer recently edited An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature. Shrayer is professor of Russian and English and chair of the Department of Slavic and Eastern Languages at Boston College. He lives in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, with his wife and daughter.
Delivery Options
Home Delivery
Store Delivery
Free Returns
We hope you are delighted with everything you buy from us. However, if you are not, we will refund or replace your order up to 30 days after purchase. Terms and exclusions apply; find out more from our Returns and Refunds Policy.