The Naked Pioneer Girl

"If Kononov's novel had been published during Perestroika, it would have been not just a bomb but an explosion, an earthquake, a tornado. . . . It would have caused the funeral of Soviet Literature."-Russian Book Review

Singing "Rio Rita," fifteen-year-old Mucha trudges along the road to her execution. But much more than death, Mucha fears expulsion from the Collective in which she plays a real and useful part. The comrades come to her when they need warmth and tenderness, and she's happy in this role, but someone really should tell Stalin or Hitler that they need to make panties with better elastic. . . . Banned even during Perestroika, this extraordinary first novel tackles the last forbidden Russian subject, the siege of Leningrad.

Mikhail Kononov was born in 1948 in Leningrad/St.Petersburg. He now lives in Germany.