Martyn Bedford
Following Fyodor
Summer in Baden-Baden
By Leonid Tsypkin (Translated by Roger and Angela Keys)
Hamish Hamilton 285pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
The death of a Russian medical researcher in 1982 went unnoticed by the wider world. Leonid Tsypkin had published papers in scientific journals in the USSR and abroad, before being demoted from his job at a prestigious scientific institute in Moscow when his son emigrated to America and then dismissed when the last of his own applications for an exit visa was rejected. He was sacked on March 15. Within five days, aged fifty-six, he suffered a fatal heart attack at his home – just another dead Jewish refusenik, soon to be forgotten by all but family and friends. Except that, on March 13, the first instalment of a novel Tsypkin had smuggled to the USA was printed in a New York magazine for Russian émigrés. Five years later, the novel was published in English for the first time by Quartet Books. Even so, it made relatively little impact and Tsypkin seemed destined to slip back into obscurity. Then, in 1991, the American writer and critic Susan Sontag came across the book in ‘a bin of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Delighted to have reviewed this —
Architecture in Britain and Ireland, 1530–1830 by Steven Brindle via @Lit_Review
You can tell it's Christmas... because here's my round up of books for @Lit_Review, feat. @Sally_Nicholls @lcpalmerpoet @laurenstjohn Katherine Rundell @thenickbowling @HelenCooperbook @foliosociety
A sneak preview of THE BOOK FORGER in the bumper Christmas issue of @Lit_Review, featuring a bombshell of a letter that I believe @aarontpratt currently has on show @ransomcenter.