Parting with Illusions

26 hrs. 30 min.

Language Russian

Author Vladimir Pozner

Narrator Yury Lazarev

Description

Vladimir Pozner wrote the book “Farewell to Illusions” twenty-one years ago. He wrote it in English. In the United States, it stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for twelve weeks. Pozner assumed he would translate his book into Russian right away, but, as he said, “It was too hard for me—I’ll just wait.” He waited eighteen years—the translation was completed in 2008. For another three years, he thought about how to reflect those past years in the manuscript. And only now, in the author’s view, the time has come to publish the Russian version of “Farewell to Illusions.” This is not just memoirs of a person with a very complicated—but truly dizzying—fate: Pozner was born in Paris, spent his childhood in New York, and only at age 18 first came to Moscow. Desperately wanting to become Russian, he still tries to figure out who he is—and where his real homeland is.

The book is interesting because Vladimir Pozner saw many of the biggest events of the 20th century “from different sides of the barricades,” and knows how to tell them captivatingly and with sharp insight. But most of all, he attempts to evaluate Russia, America, and Europe soberly and without bias. Pozner knows from the inside our and Western television, the political backrooms, and the life of elites. For the first time in Russian literature of the 21st century, the author dares to discuss—honestly—questions of national self-awareness, religion, politics, and the features of the Russian mentality. This book will undoubtedly change our attitude toward memoirs, because until now nobody had written about their life, country, and our epoch with such openness, irony, and depth. “Farewell to Illusions”… Under the title of the book, many can sign. Everyone who reads this book will sign.

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