The Dissident

Moscow is staging a show trial, of one of its most challenging dissidents, Ivan Errogin, the author of a series of blisteringly subversive short stories. Agitation in support of Errogin builds up in the West. Our leading newspaper sends its top correspondent to cover the trial. And when Errogin's sentence is, surprisingly, deportation, Britain welcomes him, and the newspaper takes him under its wing. But there are wheels within wheels within wheels here. The dissident is a fake, set up by the KGB. The trial is meant to lead the West up the garden, and does. The prosecution has the best of all the exchanges. And yet, the KGB is not getting things all its own way. The false Errogin turns out to be nobody's stooge, but emphatically his own man. He startles the Russians with the bite of his satire. And he startles the British with his bitter reactions to our own culture. Here is a highly controversial novel that forces its readers into many reappraisals. It is also wickedly funny: in the clash of wits between the KGB colonel and the wily and incorrigible 'Errogin'; in its portrayal of the bizarre Moscow colony of dissidents; in its high-lighting of the crass follies of our professional Red-baiters. Once again Peter Van Greenaway surprises, stimulates, infuriates and delights.