COMRADE STALIN'S BABY TOOTH

IN THE VILLAGE OF MERRY LIMP, Aunt Zina runs a butcher shop. On Sinew Monday, only sinews are sold. On Bone Tuesday, the populace can buy bones; and so on for the rest of the week. Thus Marina Sonkina lays the groundwork for a surreal satire on Stalin's USSR. Seen through the eyes of the eleven-year-old Natasha, the story unfolds in a mad procession of events, incongruous characters, party meetings and slogans. We encounter railway workers, officials and party leaders all the way to characters like Beria and Stalin himself. Audaciously using grotesque as her method of description, Sonkina resurrects the fears, the cruelty and the absurdity of people's lives under Stalin. As all good satire, "Comrade Stalin's Baby Tooth" puts a reflective mirror to the past, warning us about the future. The book, illustrated with colour propaganda posters of the period, is presented in the manner of an official document from the KGB files. "What readers could forget their introduction to Merry Limp Cemetery, or a chess game at Lenin's tomb involving live pawns wearing crimson tutus? The wit, satire, imagination, and empathy of Comrade Stalin's Baby Tooth, not to mention all the playful narrative surprises and memorable imagery, convey the human capacity (in Faulkner's words) not only to endure but to prevail. To make poetry and comedy out of waste and horror is doubtless difficult, but Marina Sonkina admirably manages both." - Elise Partridge, author of Chameleon Hours