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Episode 7

Sukhanov's daughter leaves home with her married lover. His colleague tells him not to come to work as he is 'stressed'. He calls his wife at the dacha; there is no reply.

When Sukhanov returns early from a friend's dinner party which, it turned out, had happened the night before, he finds his apartment invaded by friends of his daughter's, including her married lover, Boris Tumanov.

Sukhanov is given a couple of hallucinatory tablets by one of the crowd at the event, and quickly slips into a dream.

Set in the dawning days of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, The Dream Life of Sukhanov is the story of one man's battle with his true nature amidst the Soviet state's struggle with its own identity. Olga Grushin opens a window on to the soul of an artist who cannot escape his own vision amidst a transient and unsettling world.

Olga Grushin was born in Moscow in 1971 and spent her childhood in Moscow and Prague. In 1989 she became the first Soviet citizen to enrol for a full-time degree in the United States while retaining Soviet citizenship. In 2006 she was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers and named one of Grant's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. She has published two novels: The Dream Life of Sukhanov (2006) and The Concert Ticket (published in the US as The Line) in April 2010. Olga lives in Washington D.C.

"A stunning fictional debut": The Independent

"Haunting": The Observer

"Heartbreaking": Vogue

"Wonderful": Daily Telegraph

"It breathes new life into American literary fiction"
The Washington Post

Abridged by Jeremy Osborne

Reader: Robert Glenister

Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Sweet Talk Production for 成人快手 Radio 4.

15 minutes

Last on

Tue 21 Feb 2012 22:45

Broadcast

  • Tue 21 Feb 2012 22:45

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