The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin

In 1945 Isaiah Berlin, working in Russia for the British Foreign Office, met Anna Akhmatova almost by chance in what was then Leningrad. The brief time they spent together one long November evening was a transformng experience for both, and has become a cardinal moment in modern literary history. For Akhmatova, Berlin was a "guest from the future," her ideal reader outside the nightmare of Soviet life and a link with a lost Russian world; he became a figure in her cryptic masterpiece "Poem without a Hero." For Berlin, this "most memorable" meeting with the beautiful poet of genius was a spur to his ideas on liberty and on history. But there were tragic consequences: the Soviet authorities thought Berlin was a British spy, Akhmatova became a suspected enemy, and until her death in 1966 the KGB persecuted her family. Though Akhmatova was convinced that she and Berlin had inadvertently started the Cold War, she remembered him gratefully and he inspired some of her finest poems. György Dalos--who inteviewed Berlin and many others who knew Akhmatova well, and who examined hitherto-secret KGB and Poliburo files--tells the inside story of how Stalin and other Soviet leaders dealt with Akhmatova. He ends with the touching story of her posthumous rehabilitation, when Russians astronomers discovered a new star and name it after her.

Biographies & Memoirs

Dalos, György

Arts & Literature

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

In 1945 Isaiah Berlin, working in Russia for the British Foreign Office, met Anna Akhmatova almost by chance in what was then Leningrad. The brief time they spent together one long November evening was a transformng experience for both, and has become a cardinal moment in modern literary history.
For Akhmatova, Berlin was a "guest from the future," her ideal reader outside the nightmare of Soviet life and a link with a lost Russian world; he became a figure in her cryptic masterpiece "Poem without a Hero." For Berlin, this "most memorable" meeting with the beautiful poet of genius was a spur to his ideas on liberty and on history. But there were tragic consequences: the Soviet authorities thought Berlin was a British spy, Akhmatova became a suspected enemy, and until her death in 1966 the KGB persecuted her family. Though Akhmatova was convinced that she and Berlin had inadvertently started the Cold War, she remembered him gratefully and he inspired some of her finest poems. 
György Dalos--who inteviewed Berlin and many others who knew Akhmatova well, and who examined hitherto-secret KGB and Poliburo files--tells the inside story of how Stalin and other Soviet leaders dealt with Akhmatova. He ends with the touching story of her posthumous rehabilitation, when Russians astronomers discovered a new star and name it after her.

Twelve-year-old Robi Singer and best friend Gabor Blum are the only boys in their class who have yet to be circumcised. Robi is worried.What if the knife should slip? What will the others think in the showers? Will he find a wife? Is there plastic surgery to fix damage of this sort?Should he have the circumcision? Everyone has an opinion—from his teachers to his eccentric grandmother and hypochondriac mother—the final decision is Robi’s.György Dalos, born in Budapest in 1943, was arrested in 1968 for “activities against the state” and his work was banned for 19 years.

The Circumcision

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd

The brief life-changing meeting time spent between Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin.

The Guest from the Future

Murray

1985: A historical report (Hongkong 2036) from the Hungarian of -

Pluto

Geschichte der Russlanddeutschen: Von Katharina der Großen bis zur Gegenwart

Beck C. H.

Ungarn. Vom Roten Stern zur Stephanskrone.

Suhrkamp

Die Beschneidung

Contemporary

Berliner Buchverlagsges

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Dalos, György. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Dalos, György