The Gift of Speech

Yuri Buida is the author of novels such as “The Fifth Kingdom,” “The Thief, the Spy, and the Murderer” (the “Big Book” award), “The Prussian Bride” (the shortlist for the “Russian Booker” award), “Blue Blood,” and others. His books have been published in France, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Norway, and other countries. The protagonist of his new novel “The Gift of Speech,” Ilya B. Shramm, at age 16 finds a father—an acclaimed television presenter—as well as a half-brother, a woman he will love for life, and a Family: an old Moscow clan of Soviet aristocracy. Here, bohemian journalists, KGB officers, and beautiful women engage in witty conversations; they are ironic and cynical, brilliantly well-read and multilingual; they aren’t afraid of free thinking and rebelliousness. Each of them, besides shared sins, has their own personal stash of skeletons from the past—and some secrets lead into the 1930s, and even into the pre-revolutionary years… “We tell each other stories for the same reason that makes us throw ourselves headlong into love: to hear a response, to hear the other—and thus become one with him. We give love unconsciously, following an ancient rule: do ut des—I give so that you may give. That is why the Lord endowed us with the gift of speech. That is why muteness is more frightening than blindness. We are born of the Spirit, but life gives us the Letter.”