Traveling Companions

Friedrich Gorenstein

1988

I lowered the window more and let the wind wash my face. As often happens when you stand at the window of a fast-moving train, a speck of dirt flew into my eye, and both eyes began to tear.

I had lived in Berdichev for four years when I was an adolescent. I’d also spent eleven years in Rostov-on-Don, and have been in Moscow for the past fifteen…

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Creator Bio

Friedrich Gorenstein

1932–2002

Novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and essayist Friedrich Gorenstein was born in Kiev. His father was a victim of Stalin’s purges. Gorenstein studied mining engineering, graduating in 1953. Subsequently, as a writer of screenplays for Russian film and television, he was not allowed to publish his prose, with the exception of one novella in 1964. In 1980 he was forced to leave the Soviet Union and moved to West Berlin.

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