Shadows on the Tundra by Dalia Grinkeviciute

translated by Dalija Valiukenas


review by Maryom


in 1941, as the German army advances from the west, thousands of Lithuanians, including 14 year old Dalia and her family, are deported by the Russians. First they're moved east, to work on a beetroot farm, then north to the Siberian arctic where they are part of a project to establish fishing factories along the coast. They have to build their own barracks, work twelve hour days (and more), receive barely enough food to survive on, succumb to lice, malnutrition, scurvy. The conditions are horrendous; life expectancy low. Somehow though, some of them manage to survive.

Based on actual events, in the words Dalia scribbled down and hid when she eventually returned to Lithuania, this book is a gripping, moving account of survival in harsh, inhospitable conditions made worse by lack of the basic human requisites of adequate food and shelter - in fact, existence is only made possible by stealing and burning wood from building supplies, and taking the fish which should be processed and sent south and west to feed Russian cities. 


Dalia isn't asking for our sympathy. There's little reminiscing about life back home. Although she does occasionally contrast 'then' and 'now', she knows that isn't the way to survive. Bad as the situation as, she has no choice but to accept it, make the best of it, and not give on on the hope that one day she will make it out alive.

The mass deportation of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians was something I was aware of from history lessons, as were the often crazy, ill-informed schemes the Socialist bureaucracy came up with for harnessing the potential of their vast country. But dealing with people in their thousands and millions deprives them of humanity. This book brings a very personal insight into the suffering caused by these actions, putting a face on at least one of the nameless thousands involved.

Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Peirene Press 
Genre - Adult Translated Fiction/non-fiction

You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris

translated by Sam Taylor

review by Maryom


Just over a year ago, we were all stunned by the terrorist attack on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris. While the world was filled with rage and demands for vengeance, one man posted on his Facebook page a response to the attackers saying "You will not have my hate", pledging himself to live life to the fullest, with love and laughter, without fear and hate, despite anything such terrorists could do; it was all the more remarkable because that man's wife, mother of his seventeen-month old son, had died in the attack.

In this short book, Antoine Leiris tells of his struggle through the first few weeks after his wife's death. He doesn't enter into the horror of events inside the Bataclan. He doesn't touch on the politics or religious beliefs of the attackers. His account is a very personal one - of a husband at home that night, looking after his son, seeing his world start to fall apart as news broke on TV, and of his gradual attempt to re-build a life for himself and his son.
From the first shock of horror, and the blind panic of that night, through the quandary of explaining events to a child too young to speak properly but fully able to understand that his mother is no longer there, and the overwhelming support from both friends, with their never-ending supply of home-made meals, and strangers inspired by his Facebook post, the reader is with Leiris every step of the way. You can feel the growing dread with which he watches the news bulletins, the gradually dawning horror as his wife cannot be found, and the grief that threatens to overwhelm him when her body is.

This isn't, though, a story of a man consumed by grief. What shines through the anguish is Leiris's determination that, although they took the life of his wife, the terrorists would not have claimed his, or his son's, too. To be consumed by hatred and the desire for vengeance, to give way to fear, to distrust his fellow men, would do just that. Instead, despite the heartbreak, and inspired in part by his son's ability to still find joy in everyday things, Leiris resolves to live life as fully as possible, to refuse to be defined by this one random act, and in this small way to stand up to terrorists whatever they believe in.

This is a book which opens amidst horror but leads to the light. There are undoubtedly overwhelming moments of grief, but the overall feel of the book is a positive one of hope.



Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Harvill Secker
Genre - adult, memoir, autobiography,