Travels in Siberia - Hardcover

Frazier, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374278725 ISBN 13: 9780374278724

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010

Synopsis

A Dazzling Russian travelogue from the bestselling author of Great PlainsIn his astonishing new work, Ian Frazier, one of our greatest and most entertaining storytellers, trains his perceptive, generous eye on Siberia, the storied expanse of Asiatic Russia whose grim renown is but one explanation among hundreds for the region€™s fascinating, enduring appeal. In Travels in Siberia, Frazier reveals Siberia€™s role in history€”its science, economics, and politics€”with great passion and enthusiasm, ensuring that we€™ll never think about it in the same way again.With great empathy and epic sweep, Frazier tells the stories of Siberia€™s most famous exiles, from the well-known€”Dostoyevsky, Lenin (twice), Stalin (numerous times)€”to the lesser known (like Natalie Lopukhin, banished by the empress for copying her dresses) to those who experienced unimaginable suffering in Siberian camps under the Sovi

About this title

Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, October 2010: Over 20 years after Great Plains, one of the more oddly wonderful books of the last few decades, Ian Frazier takes us to another territory worthy of his expansive curiosity: the vast eastern stretches of Russia known as Siberia. Through the stories of Russian friends, Frazier was drawn there in the early '90s, and he soon fell in love with the country--an "embarrassing" sort of middle-aged love, an involuntary infection. What he loves is its tragedy and its humor, its stoic practicality and its near-insanity: he calls it "the greatest horrible country in the world," and Siberia is its swampy, often-frozen, and strikingly empty backyard. He took five trips there over the next dozen or so years, and Travels in Siberia is based on those journeys. But as in Great Plains, when Frazier travels he follows his own curiosity through time as well as space, telling stories of the Mongols and the Decembrists with the same amused and empathetic eye he brings to his own traveling companions. His curiosity quickly becomes yours, as does his affection for this immense and grudgingly hospitable land. --Tom Nissley

About the Author

Ian Frazier is the author of Great Plains, On the Rez, Lamentations of the Father and Coyote V. Acme, among other works, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He graduated from Harvard University. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0374278725
• ISBN 13: 9780374278724
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 529