Boris Schumatsky

The Russian-Jewish narrator lives in Berlin. He can no longer visit his ailing mother in Moscow, as he faces arrest if he returns. All that remains are telephone conversations in which her voice grows ever fainter, memories of growing up under a violent dictatorship, and the countless secrets shared around his parents’ kitchen table. Many of these stories were told by the resourceful Natalia, who once worked as a concierge at the Paris hotel where Paul Celan lived and who knows more about Celan’s life and loves than researchers have ever uncovered. With remarkable skill, Schumatsky weaves together his political despair over Russia’s war against Ukraine and the antisemitism on his own doorstep with images from childhood and a deeply personal interpretation of Celan’s life, writing and death.

25 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Europe's democracies are in a deep crisis. Old political camps are fading: the left is trading revolution for nationalism; the right is borrowing a useful enemy – the banks – from the left. It causes Boris Schumatsky great dismay to see the growing success of Russia's autocrats. Whether right, left or middle: Ruling is fun, freedom is tough. During the 1990s, a wave of postmodernism seemed to promise everlasting peace. Now the ease of those days, and with it an inability to tell apart truth and lies, has turned into a populist monster. Boris Schumatsky delivers an astute analysis of current political trends and future prospects.