Black Square: Adventures in the Post-Soviet World

A captivating and original street-level account of a vexing and troubled region. In the tradition of Barbara Demick and Katherine Boo, Black Square presents an evocative, multidimensional portrait of post-Soviet life under the shadow of Putin. In vivid, original prose, Sophie Pinkham draws us into the fascinating lives of her contemporaries - a generation that came of age after the fall of the USSR, only to see protestors shot on Kiev's main square, Maidan; Crimea annexed by Russia; and a bitter war in eastern Ukraine. Amid the rubble, Pinkham tells stories that convey a youth culture flourishing amid the rubble of a tragically corrupt state. We meet a charismatic, drug-addicted doctor helping to smooth the transition to democracy, a Bolano-esque art gallerist prone to public nudity, and a Russian Jewish clarinetist agitating for Ukrainian liberation. With deep knowledge of Slavic literature and a keen, outsider's eye for the dark absurdity of post-Soviet society, Pinkham delivers an indelible impression of a country, and a world, on the brink.