I Planned to Flee

18 hrs. 25 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Yury Polyakov

Narrator Yury Belyk

Description

The family saga “I Planned an Escape…,” finished by the author in 1999, became a kind of culmination of many years of searching. In some critics’ opinion, it is also one of the peaks of Russian novel-writing in the 20th century. Telling the story of the ordinary Bashmakov couple, Yury Polyakov immerses us in a complex, changeable, and delicate world of relations between men and women, bound by habitual love and family ties that sometimes feel like chains. And here, the author believes, the main thing is not to confuse a crisis with collapse.

The family drama unfolds against the backdrop of important historical events—the last years of the existence and dissolution of the great country called the USSR. Since it was written, the book has gone through about twenty editions and continues to be in demand among discerning readers who value a sharp plot, subtle psychology, intelligent irony, appropriate eroticism, and a polished, aphoristic style. Taking into account the writer’s gender candor, one of the critics exclaimed: “Polyakov handed us over, us men, with all our innards!”

The long-seller “I Planned an Escape…” has been adapted for film, translated into many languages, and in China was recognized as the best foreign novel of 2004.