WINNER OF THE 2018 READ RUSSIA PRIZE AND THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BEST BOOK IN
TRANSLATION IN 2017
Considered Teffi's single greatest work, Memories: From Moscow to the
Black Sea is a deeply personal account of the author's last months in
Russia and Ukraine, suffused with her acute awareness of the political
currents churning around her, many of which have now resurfaced.
In 1918, in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Teffi,
whose stories and journalism had made her a celebrity in Moscow, was
invited to read from her work in Ukraine. She accepted the invitation
eagerly, though she had every intention of returning home. As it
happened, her trip ended four years later in Paris, where she would
spend the rest of her life in exile. None of this was foreseeable when
she arrived in German-occupied Kiev to discover a hotbed of artistic
energy and experimentation. When Kiev fell several months later to
Ukrainian nationalists, Teffi fled south to Odessa, then on to the port
of Novorossiysk, from which she embarked at last for Constantinople.
Danger and death threaten throughout Memories, even as the book
displays the brilliant style, keen eye, comic gift, and deep feeling
that have made Teffi one of the most beloved of twentieth-century
Russian writers.
