Oranges from Morocco

5 hrs. 11 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Vasily Aksyonov

Narrator Alexey Rossoshansky

Description

In the dead of winter, a shipment of oranges arrived in a small Far Eastern town. An event? For the 1960s, it was an extraordinary event, real exoticism! The oranges become the center of taiga and seaside life. And all the characters in the novella seem illuminated by the joyful light of an orange-red sun — young, restless, fine lads. Listen to their cheerful voices, rejoice with them in the fresh air of freedom!

A doctor by education, a “hipster” and “anti-Soviet” by spirit, and the brightest innovator in 20th-century Russian prose, Vasily Aksyonov was born in Kazan in 1932. He was not yet five when his parents were sent to Stalin's camps... Thus began the writer's drama-filled life.

1960 — the novella “Colleagues.” 1961 — real success — the novel “A Starry Ticket.” Mid-1970s — the first books that could not be published in the USSR. 1980 — forced emigration.

Aksyonov's books returned to us during perestroika, together with new ones written abroad. And from the 1990s onward, Vasily Pavlovich himself also lived in Russia for long stretches.

“Oranges from Morocco” is one of Aksyonov's most popular works. Preserving the style of the reader-beloved “A Starry Ticket,” the author made a step toward the future heights of his utterly unique prose.