Less well known today is another wonderful Paris Russian writer, Gaito Gazdanov. It’s his work that has really shaped how I see the White Russians of Paris – especially his novel Night Roads, which gives an autobiographical account of what it was to be an angry young man from the Russian diaspora driving a taxi by night and struggling to become a writer. That was my starting point for imagining my male lead, Jean.
My interest isn’t only from books. My first Russian teacher, Nina Wilsdon, née Brodyanskaya (another name that crops up in this story), was from one of these Paris émigré families. And, while learning Russian at university, I had a taste of the life myself when I spent five months in a White Russian school-turned-monastery-turned-language centre at Meudon, just outside Paris.
So perhaps my fascination grew out of the stories I heard in all these classrooms, too.
At any rate, I still can’t think of anything braver than the sheer cussedness of those early twentieth-century exiles, people so brutally expelled from their past and so incredibly down on their luck, who just wouldn’t give up trying to find a future.
Credits
Cover design by Lisa Bettencourt
Cover photograph: Nina Masic / Trevillion Images
Copyright
The White Russian
Copyright © 2014 by Vanorissima.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPUB Edition November 2014 ISBN 9781443438681
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and, if notified of any corrections, will make suitable acknowledgement in future reprints or editions of this book.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
2 Bloor Street East, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4W 1A8
www.harpercollins.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request
ISBN 978-1-44343-866-7
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
http://www.harpercollins.com