Soviet women writing Book

Soviet women fought and won their struggle for equal rights 40 years before the women's liberation movement began in the West. Daily life in Russia however, presents burdens no Western woman would care to face. The stories in this collection - all translated here for the first time - reveal much about the concerns, feelings and aspirations of Soviet women; they also present an unprecedentedly wide survey of the most prominent Russian women writers since World War 2, including Lidia Ginzburg, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Viktoria Tokareva and Tatyana Tostaya. The themes are rich and varied ranging from broken marriages to switching traditional male/female roles in marriage; from haunting reminiscences of life during the siege of Leningrad to the erotic awakenings of a young boy. The styles are equally diverse. Some of the authors adopt an embracing, intimate tone; others prefer a stark, unvarnished style; while still others are highly innovative, experimenting with surrealistic prose. For all the differences between their way of life and ours, Soviet women, as this collection illustrates, ultimately share much in common with women everywhere. They, too, fall in love, marry, divorce, adore their children, and worry about the future. Readers of this volume - women and men alike may learn much about a society, long closed to us and also find much to identify with.