Leaving Russia
A Jewish Story
Leaving Russia:
A Jewish Story
by Maxim D. Shrayer
©2013
360 pages
Cloth: 978-0-8156-1024-3
eBook: 978-0-8156-5243-4
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Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story is a memoir of coming of age and struggling to leave the USSR. Shrayer chronicles the triumphs and humiliations of a Soviet childhood and expresses the dreams and fears of a Jewish family that never gave up its hopes for a better life. Narrated in the tradition of Tolstoy's confessional trilogy and Nabokov's autobiography, this is a searing account of the KGB's persecution of refuseniks, a poet's rebellion against totalitarian culture, and Soviet fantasies of the West during the Cold War. Shrayer's remembrances are set against a rich backdrop of politics and ethnic conflict on the brink of the Soviet empire's collapse. His moving story offers generous doses of humor and tenderness, counterbalanced with longing and violence. Leaving Russia is a love story in which a young Jew's love is unrequited and his heart is forever broken by his homeland.
Praise for Leaving Russia
"Leaving Russia adds color to the black and white world forced on Jews in the old Soviet Union. In this book, Shrayer describes an emotional journey-not just from Russia to America, but from spiritual darkness into light. The book also explains why Jews felt forced to leave a country they loved, when it grew clear that country would never, could never, love them in return."
—Wyatt Andrews, CBS News National Correspondent
"An exquisite memoir...An unforgettable first-person account of Jewish life and Jewish suffering during the final years of Russian Communism."
—Jonathan D. Sarna, author of When General Grant Expelled the Jews
"Leaving Russia should be assigned reading for anyone interested in the Jewish experience of the twentieth century."
—Annette Gendler, Jewish Book World
Leaving Russia has been named a finalist for the 2013 National Jewish Book Awards.
Translated Editions
 (Russian Edition) Бегство: документальный роман |  (Russian edition) Бегство: документальный роман |  (Italian Edition) Fuga dalla Russia: Una storia ebraica |