Emil Draitser, From Here to Wherever

November 20, 2012, 6:30 PM

This tragicomic novel is set in the late 1970s, at the time of mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union. A diverse set of characters - luckless simple folks, expelled dissidents, victims of ethnic discrimination, and black-marketers escaping state prosecution - bid farewell to their beloved city and head for the West via Vienna and Rome. Their attempts at en-route adjustment to the world of personal (and sexual) freedom are often painful and amusing at the same time... In this resourcefully structured novel, the characters' background stories, hilarious and wrenching, are skillfully woven into the texture of chapters alternately written by the author and one of the book heroes.

Born in Odessa, award-winning author of ten volumes of artistic and scholarly prose and professor of Russian at Hunter College in NYC, Emil Draitser immigrated to the USA in 1975. Among his most recent books are Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin and Stalin's Romeo Spy: The Remarkable Rise and Fall of the KGB's Most Daring Operative, both earning high critical acclaim.