'The Gift of Speech' by Yuri Buida: a new novel by the acclaimed master and winner of the 'Big Book' award.

The speech of the past and the silence of the present. A book about how unprocessed and silenced traumas of past decades become living wounds today.

A modern epic. In his novel 'The Gift of Speech,' Yuri Buida traces the history of Russia in the 20th and 21st centuries, from the Revolution to the present day, through the story of one family.

A historical detective story. The protagonist's search for answers to the question of his ancestors leads to the unraveling of many mysteries of the past and present. It turns out that history never forgets, and the events of the 1930s directly influence what is happening in 2020.

Tags: novel, Russian prose, historical detective story, gift of speech, silence, family saga, Yuri Buida, long novel, 1903s, Soviet past, family history

Abstract

Yuri Buida is the author of the novels 'The Fifth Kingdom', 'The Thief, the Spy, and the Murderer' (Big Book Prize), 'The Prussian Bride' (shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize), 'Blue Blood', etc. His books are published in France, Great Britain, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Norway and other countries.

The protagonist of the new novel 'The Gift of Speech', Ilya B. Schramm, at the age of 16 finds a father, a famous TV presenter, and also A half-brother, a lifelong love, and the Family: the old Moscow clan of Soviet aristocracy. Here, bohemian journalists, KGB officers, and beautiful women engage in witty conversations, are ironic and cynical, brilliantly erudite, speak several languages, and are unafraid of freethinking and rebelliousness. Each of them, in addition to common sins, has a personal set of skeletons from the past - and some secrets lead to the thirties and even pre-revolutionary years...

'We tell each other stories for the same reason that makes us give ourselves over to love headlong: to hear a response, to hear the other - and thus become one with him. We give love, unconsciously following the ancient rule: do ut des - I give so that you give.

It is for this reason that the Lord endowed us with the gift of speech.

It is for this reason that dumbness is more terrible than blindness.

We are born of the Spirit, but life is given to us by the Letter.'

Authors: Yuri Buida