Druzhok

Swift and noisy, yet generous to people, the Amu Darya became home to the family of young Adam Yantsen: at the end of the 19th century, they settled on its banks. Years passed; the Yantsens grew accustomed to their new place and desperately hoped that this time fate would spare them and their misfortunes would stay behind. But the quiet, yielding Adam, trying to protect his love, makes a fateful choice. From that moment on, he is doomed to exile: alone and cut off from home, he will wander the world.

Decades will pass; cities and countries will change before, in a Volga city, the gentle and kind Marfa will give on the birthday of a neighbor’s girl, Alyonka, a book precious to her—a favorite of her husband Pyotr’s reading. A book written by that same Adam. And with that, the story will close the circle.

“Druzhok” is a poignantly vivid novel about responsibility, faith, and love—sometimes helpless, sometimes all-conquering—and about the choices and actions that help preserve one’s honesty, above all with oneself.