cover image In the Past Night: The Siberian Stories

In the Past Night: The Siberian Stories

Dmitry Stonov. Texas Tech University Press, $27.95 (236pp) ISBN 978-0-89672-358-0

This remarkable collection of short fiction bears the weight of the author's own experiences, as detailed by his son in a foreword. In 1949, during the throes of Stalin's anti-Jewish campaign, Stonov (1898-1962), a renowned Russian-Jewish writer, was sentenced to a Siberian work camp; during his six-year imprisonment, he composed these stories on cigarette paper (writing materials were forbidden) that he later smuggled out to family members. The 17 tales reveal the life of political prisoners of that era. Their stark settings but complex rendering of characters make them memorable, particularly in the relationship Stonov draws between the repressive Stalinist mind-set and its often devastating psychological toll on individuals. Stonov writes in a conversational, exuberant style (the translation reads naturally), and he's able to capture a character in a few swift strokes; the new prison overseer, for example, is noted to be ``fat, flabby and pathologically suspicious.'' The stories tend to fall into two categories. There are those set in prison camps; the most disturbing of these consists of the remaining fragments of ``Seven Slashes,'' recounting Stonov's experience of seven solitary days in ``the cabinet,'' a cell too small to lie down in. Then there are those that concern released prisoners, who are either bent on revenge or find themselves facing an unexpectedly brutal world. An afterword, based on talks with Stonov's wife, explains the autobiographical aspects of the stories, which are invigorated time and again by their creator's refusal to settle for simple dichotomies, no matter how victimized his characters or how reprehensible their situations. Twelve photos. (Nov.)