'History doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes.'

One day in 1988, an enigmatic priest knocks on Pieter Waterdrinker's door with an unusual request: will he smuggle seven thousand bibles into the Soviet Union? Pieter agrees, and soon finds himself living in the midst of one of the biggest social and cultural revolutions of our time, working as a tour operator ... with a sideline in contraband.

Thirty years later, from his apartment on Tchaikovsky Street in Saint Petersburg, where he lives with his Russian wife and three cats, Pieter reflects on his personal history in the Soviet Union, as well as the century of revolutions that took place in and around his street. A master storyteller, he blends history with memoir to create an ode to the divided soul of Russia and an unputdownable account of his own struggles with life, literature, and love.

About the Author
Pieter Waterdrinker (born 1961, Haarlem) is one of the most successful novelists in contemporary Dutch literature, praised for his compelling voice. He studied Russian at the University of Amsterdam, and was a long-time correspondent at the leading Dutch daily De Telegraaf. His literary work has often been translated and longlisted for awards, and his last novel The Rat of Amsterdam is a critically acclaimed bestseller. He lives between Saint Petersburg and the South of France. Paul Evans is a Welsh poet and writer. He has published poetry in Britain and Holland, and translations of Dutch poetry, drama, and fiction with Faber and Seren. His translated plays have been performed at The Old Vic and The Guggenheim. His latest poetry collection is Grand Larcenies (Carcanet, 2021).

Reviews

'Waterdrinker's gift for savage comedy and his war correspondent's eye have few contemporary equivalents.'

-- Simon Ings * The Times *

'Engrossing ... grips you and doesn't let go.'

-- Matthew Janney * The Spectator *

'A gripping memoir by one of Holland's most admired novelists ... a valuable historical document of the era.'

-- Rupert Christiansen * The Telegraph *

'A disarming, erudite, shocking, laugh-out-loud Dutch bestseller.'

-- Rory Maclean * TLS *

'A wonderful, page-turning narrative ... fascinating and endlessly readable ... Waterdrinker is a gifted storyteller.'

-- Donal O'Keeffe * Irish Examiner *

'The recreations of revolutionary Russia are vivid (including his hatred of the Tsar, Lenin and Stalin) as is the daily reality of living in glasnost Russia. There are some positively Dostoevskian characters, and his portrait of Russia caught at twin moments of upheaval (1917, 1988) is an epic tale told with deceptive simplicity.'

-- Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen * The Sydney Morning Herald *

'A remarkable, sly blend of memoir and history, past and present, amusement and bemusement. How the memoir of a Dutch writer selling bibles in Russia also becomes the story of our past century is beyond me. But in Waterdrinker's masterful hands, it does. The Long Song of Tchaikovsky Street is a spectacular tale, and a towering achievement.'

-- Shalom Auslander, author of Mother for Dinner

'Russia's recent history has been inspirational and unpredictable, tragic and bizarre, and it takes a quirky literary autobiography like this to capture that. From showing the Russian president's wife through Amsterdam's red-light district to wheeling and dealing in the dying days of the USSR, Waterdrinker offers up an eminently readable and critically affectionate vision of a Russia constantly in the throes of reinvention.'

-- Professor Mark Galeotti, author of A Short History of Russia

'An evocative personal history of smuggling and surviving.'

* Foyles *

'I really enjoyed it ... it spoke to my own experiences.'

-- Mark Galeotti * The Spectator TV *

'Peter Waterdrinker's experiences of Russia over the past quarter century are undoubtedly worth telling ... his descriptions are evocative.'

-- Owen Matthews * Catholic Herald *

'Words by Waterdrinker are as amazing as a superior circus'

* Elsevier *

'How evocatively Waterdrinker can write! A hundred years after the Russian Revolution, he makes this violent period of history shine once again.'

* Zin *

Praise for Lenin's Balsem:

'A book with an exotic elegance.'

* de Volkskrant *

Praise for Lenin's Balsem:

'A hilarious quest, written in a wonderful baroque style.'

* De Telegraaf *

Praise for The Death of Mila Burger:

'In many respects The Death of Mila Burger is a novel about twenty-first-century Russia, dished up according to the laws of the nineteenth-century novel. Fluent, expressive, amusing.'

* NRC Handelsblad *

Praise for The Death of Mila Burger:

'The Death of Mila Burger is a classic tragedy. It is quality prose. Exuberant in a rather un-Dutch way.'

* Vrij Nederland *

'In this compelling memoir ... Waterdrinker recounts the awful and at the same time great decades that gave Russians a radically redefined role on the world stage ... An intensely personal perspective on geopolitical transformation.'

-- Bryce Christensen * Booklist, starred review *

'[Waterdrinker] interweaves memoir and history in this impressionistic account of Russia from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to the present day ... [he] incisively captures the beauty and terror of his adopted country ... Russophiles will savour this iconoclastic portrait of modern Russia.'

* Publishers Weekly *

'An octogenarian aristocrat cooped up in a decrepit Soviet madhouse, doctors requiring bribes before even considering treating patients, the wife of a Russian president touring Amsterdam's red-light district, lust-driven physicists embezzling foreign aid programs, the mad monk Rasputin. These are just a handful of the memorable characters Pieter Waterdrinker draws in his idiosyncratic, darkly humorous, captivating blend of memoir, history, and reportage that spans Russia's last century. It's a terrific read that will engage and inform in equal measure.'

-- Gordon Peake * The Canberra Times *

'Compelling.'

* The Herald *



Book Information
ISBN 9781912854073
Author Pieter Waterdrinker
Format Hardback
Page Count 416
Imprint Scribe Publications
Publisher Scribe Publications
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 153mm * 33mm