Corrected

I first heard an interview with Professor Khrushcheva on Live From The Left Coast with Ian Masters on KPFK, some years ago. Mr. Masters is an informed and intelligent questioner, he is without doubt the best I’ve listened to. And the interview was a fascinating look at Russian politics through the lens of literature, with a person with a wealth of knowledge about both aspects of Soviet and Russian life,she even adds to our idea of what it means to be an American, while maintaining her cultural roots in her homeland . The advantage of her dual citizenship and her ability to bridge that gap between the two disparate but contiguous worlds, makes this modest book worthy of the time to read and reflect on, not to speak of the pleasure of wonderful writing, full of insights into Russian,Soviet and American lives,values and the intersections of these in the person of Vladimir Nabokov. Prof. Khrushcheva, while telling her story, also gives the reader a glimpse into what one variant of an emergent American cosmopolitanism might look like, in our benighted era, this is an aspiration that borders on the unpatriotic, as conceived by the ascendent No-Nothings.But Prof. Khruscheva brings this practice into vibrant life, on the page, as she quotes from the writings of Nabokov and a long list of Russian writers. Here is Nabokov’s struggle, his metamorphosis from writer in Russian into English, an adaptation necessitated by his leaving Russia and eventually settling in America, as teacher,literary critic and author. Here is a book that demonstrates to the reader the possibilities of remaking the self, while maintaining what could be called a dual identity. This book is rich is relevant quotation that brings into focus the struggle to build bridges to a plurality of worlds, a project, a challenge that now faces us all, even though not as sharply focused, whether we choose to engage or ignore is perhaps the ethical challenge of the 21st Century.
Stephen