Didar en Faroek

Drawing on her parents' lives, the author follows a man and a woman across thirty-five years in Stalin's Soviet Union. Didar is attractive, wilful and trusting, a keen member of the Communist youth league; Faroek, a far-off cousin, is retiring and silent and learned early to distrust speech. They meet as thirteen-year-olds at a wedding and not again for two decades. The purges and the war cost Didar her relatives, her friends and her belief in the cause, while Faroek fights in the Red Army, becomes a German prisoner and is later sent to a labour camp. Letters link them.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

429 pages in the original

Genres

Historical, War (assigned by AI)

Set in

Russia

First published

2006 by Meulenhoff

Author's age

42 when first published

ISBN

9789029075046 (original)