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Novels set behind the Iron Curtain.

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  • 05-09-2014 10:11pm
    #1
    iguana
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 12,909 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    Has anyone any recommendations for cold war era novels, set mainly in the Soviet/Warsaw Pact countries. Not really looking for apt stuff, unless the day to day lives of the characters is what drives the story.


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    #2
    tim3000
    Registered Users Posts: 555 ✭✭✭tim3000


    One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch (set in a Gulag) and Cancer ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn are quite good.


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    #3
    Aenaes
    Registered Users Posts: 1,677 ✭✭✭Aenaes


    Martin Cruz Smith's crime novels, Gorky Park and Polar Star and Red Square. The first takes place in 1980's Moscow, the second is during "Perestroika" and the third takes place in Moscow, Munich and Berlin during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    The Dogs Of Riga by Henning Mankell. It starts off in Sweden, 1991. A life raft washes in to shore containing two dead bodies, Swedish detective travels to Latvia to find some answers. He finds a country struggling to deal with life after the Soviet Union.


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    #4
    Eramen
    Registered Users Posts: 776 ✭✭✭Eramen


    Red Plenty by Francis Spufford

    As mentioned above almost anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is good.


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    #5
    iguana
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 12,909 Mod ✭✭✭✭iguana


    Thanks, I'll definitely check some of those out.


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    #6
    goose2005
    Registered Users Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭goose2005


    The Unbearable Lightness of Being


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    #7
    Eoin
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 21,238 CMod ✭✭✭✭Eoin


    Aenaes wrote: »
    Martin Cruz Smith's crime novels, Gorky Park and Polar Star and Red Square. The first takes place in 1980's Moscow, the second is during "Perestroika" and the third takes place in Moscow, Munich and Berlin during the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    I'm enjoying those books.

    There's also the Leo Demidov series by Tom Rob Smith, though I think they might be pre-cold war era.


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    #8
    fisgon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,747 ✭✭✭fisgon


    Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer. Read it years ago, but I do remember it to be darkly comic. Set in Hungary.


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    #9
    Jinonatron
    Registered Users Posts: 111 ✭✭Jinonatron


    Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith is set in the Soviet Union where a detective is investigating murders inspired by the real life ripper of rostov :D


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    #10
    Schrodingercat
    Registered Users Posts: 132 ✭✭Schrodingercat


    "In the first circle" by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.

    Its a while since I read it, but I remember it being really good.


    +1 for Gorky park as well.


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    #11
    cack_handed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 287 ✭✭cack_handed


    Schrodingercat wrote: »
    "In the first circle" by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.

    Its a while since I read it, but I remember it being really good.


    +1 for Gorky park as well.

    Another hearty endorsement for Gorky Park here, great crime novel and also an excellent big screen adaption with William Hurt and Brian Dennehy among the cast. Also read Polar Star, not quite as good, but still hugely enjoyable and keen to get into the rest of the Arkady Renko canon


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    #12
    Eoin
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 21,238 CMod ✭✭✭✭Eoin


    I'm reading Red Square (the 3rd book in the series) at the moment, and it's a bit flat compared to the first 2.


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    #13
    Rosy Posy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,666 ✭✭✭Rosy Posy


    The House of Meetings by Martin Amis. +1 on The Unbearable Lightness of Being, or anything by Milan Kundera.


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    #14
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,671 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn++.
    For some factual details, there is the work of historical work of Richard Pipes and more recently the travel/biography writer Oliver Bullough.


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