The Time of Women - by Elena Chizhova & Nina Chordas (Paperback)

About the Book

Life is not easy in the Soviet Union at mid-twentieth century, especially for a factory worker who becomes an unwed mother. But Antonina is lucky to get a room in a communal apartment that she and her little girl share with three old women.

Book Synopsis

Life is not easy in the Soviet Union at mid-twentieth century, especially for a factory worker who becomes an unwed mother. But Antonina is lucky to get a room in a communal apartment that she and her little girl share with three old women. Glikeria is the daughter of former serfs. Ariadna comes from a wealthy family and speaks French. Yevdokia is illiterate and bitter. All have lost their families, all are deeply traditional, and all become "grannies" to little Suzanna. Only they secretly name her Sofia. And just as secretly they impart to her the history of her country as they experienced it: the Revolution, the early days of the Soviet Union, the blockade and starvation of World War II.The little girl responds by drawing beautiful pictures, but she is mute. If the authorities find out she will be taken from her home and sent to an institution. When Antonina falls desperately ill, the grannies are faced with the reality of losing the little girl they love - unless a stepfather can be found before it is too late. And for that, they need a miracle.

Review Quotes

"In this Booker winning novel, Chizhova offers a slice of that history through the revealing private narratives of a few representative women whose lives are focused on the girl who will take the women's stories into a future they will not see. A powerful tale." Paul Richardson, Russian Life

"Any reader with an interest in things Russian - from the above-mentioned glimpses to the German blockade of Leningrad to the way Russians see America, and which nation really saved Europe in WWII - will find as much here to learn as to recognize." Steve Street, Rain Taxi

"Their [women's] story is a simple one. Aside from Antonina's ailing medical condition (she falls ill from cancer), not much happens. But it's the ordinariness of these women's daily drudgery-the endless queues for supplies, the hours boiling dirty rags, the constant cooking of potatoes and bland food-that comes vibrantly alive on the page. A scattered, stream-of-consciousness writing style takes some getting used to, especially at the beginning, and it's often difficult to keep track of which character is doing the narrating or whether a conversation is spoken or merely overheard. But persistence promises hearty rewards, including a vision of a Russian past not often revisited. For Western readers unfamiliar with Russian/Soviet history, an especially dramatic read." KIRKUS REVIEWS

"It is an earthbound and frankly emotional novel, especially in a literary scene long dominated by the cerebral trickery of postmodernism". THE NEW YORK TIMES

"Most of these stalwart devotees are women, which is another major sign of the times. One of the most popular novels to be published in the past two years bore the symbolic title The Time of Women, and its author, the St Petersburg university professor Elena Chizhova, was catapulted to fame by winning the Russian Booker prize in 2009". THE TELEGRAPH

"Many of the most inspiring new names, such as Elena Chizhova, are re-examining the past rather than taking on the present." THE FINANCIAL TIMES

"Yet like other contemporary Russian texts - Viktor Pelevin's works come to mind - The Time of Women constantly references political events, but is far from a political novel. The regime is oppressive, but so is life itself. Antonina is an abandoned single mother who gets sick with cancer; Suzanna is mute; the grandmothers are old and unwell. One of the primary questions the book addresses is how it is possible to resist oppression in any form and at the same time retain one's humanity. Chizhova's novel suggests that such resistance is possible". Yelena Furman, The Los Angeles Review of Books

"You might choose to read The Time of Women because it won the Russian Booker Prize or because it was written in contemporary Russia or because it is about three generations of women finding ways to survive by supporting one another in a rather bleak world. But my recommendation would be that you read it to grapple with Chizhova's jarring and challenging narrative and rhetorical style. And also because her struggling and verbally inhibited characters are not representative only of Russia's tragic history but stand, also, for certain aspects of our common humanity and certain aspects of the lives even of those of us in the relatively untroubled and pampered West". PAUL MONK/THE AUSTRALIAN

"It is a richly detailed world of superstition and suspicion, in which the local agents of state power exercise a stifling and often arbitrarily applied control over individual citizens' lives". Gemma Nisbet, The West Australian