Letters to Another Room

Ravil Bukharaev (1951-2012) was a celebrated Tatar writer, poet and scholar of religious, cultural and political history of his native Tatarstan and author of over thirty books. Born in Kazan, the capital, in 1992 he left Russia and moved to London with his artist/poet wife Lydia Grigorieva in 1992 and subsequently joined the BBC World Service. Latterly, following early retirement, he committed himself to supporting a number of UNESCO projects.

‘Ravil Bukharaev carries the flame of the finest Russian prose – of Pushkin, Turgenev, Bunin. His classical clarity, his perfect balance of phrase and thought and the unhurried and magnanimous flow of his narration are wonderfully rendered from Russian by John Farndon's English translation. Letters to Another Room is an everlasting dialogue between the author and his characters, between the writer and his readers, between the narrator and his translator – a broad and true dialogue that bridges cultures and epochs.’HAMID ISMAILOV Author of The Railway and A Poet and Bin-Laden

• 1 Ten Minutes of Solitude2 The Gout Flower3 The Ghost of the Bird-cherry TreeThe Month of Little Heat4 The Escape and Twenty Years of Non-existenceOn to the Other Side5 ‘Not Always Flying…’Chestnut near Karlovy Bridge6 A Prayer in Beech ForestsAbout the Fishing Rod7 The Dorothean FieldsStairway to Heaven8 Who CriesThe Secret Lily of the Valley9 Postscript