Banine – författare

'A scintillating book' TLS

'Her company is a delight' Tatler

'Part memoir, part social history... sumptuous and unsparing' Financial Times

A brilliantly witty memoir telling the story of a young woman's determined struggle for freedom

The Orient Express hurtles towards the promised land, freeing Banine from her past. Escaping her ruined homeland and forced marriage, she aspires to a dazzling future in Paris.

As a chic Parisienne she mingles with émigrés, artists and writers-and even contemplates love. But freedom brings challenges. Swept along by the forces of history, can Banine keep up?

Filled with vivacious wit and a lust for life, this companion to Days in the Caucasus is a paean to bittersweet dreams and the quest for happiness.

Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe

Translated by Anne Thompson-Ahmadova

Banine (1905-1992) was born Umm El-Banu Assadullayeva, into a wealthy family in Baku, then part of the Russian Empire. Following the Russian Revolution and the subsequent fall of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Banine was forced to flee her home country-first to Istanbul, and then to Paris. In Paris she formed a wide circle of literary acquaintances including Nicos Kazantzakis, André Malraux, Ivan Bunin and Teffi and eventually began writing herself. Parisian Days continues the story that began with Days in the Caucasus, which is also available from Pushkin Press.

A rediscovered classic memoir - the scintillatingly witty account of one extraordinary woman's life during a turbulent century

'A voice so vivid it seems impossible that it should ever have been forgotten' Evening Standard

'An effervescent and irreverent feat of recollection and imagination'-Wall Street Journal

We all know families that are poor but 'respectable'. Mine, in contrast, was extremely rich but not 'respectable' at all...

This is the unforgettable memoir of a childhood spent in Azerbaijan in the turbulent early twentieth century, caught between East and West, tradition and modernity.

Banine remembers her luxurious home, her beloved German governess and her imperious Muslim grandmother. She recalls how the Bolsheviks came, and how amid revolution and bloodshed she fell passionately in love, only to be forced into marriage with a man she loathed - until the chance of escape arrived...

The story of Banine's life is both a wry, romantic coming-of-age tale and a touching portrait of a vanished world. It is continued in her companion memoir, Parisian Days.

PRAISE FOR DAYS IN THE CAUCASUS

'An enchanting memoir' - Jane Shilling, Evening Standard

'This jewel of a memoir, written in 1945 but only now published in English, has all the makings of a Tolstoyan drama' - The New Internationalist

'Banine's autobiography captures a rarefied world on the brink of extinction' - Bryan Karetnyk, Spectator

'Banine's consummate prose is marked by undertones of erudite wittiness. Educated and pragmatic, but also hopeful, she expresses wanting nothing more than to be free to pursue self-realization. Days in the Caucasus was published in 1945; this first English translation of the memoir is an absolute joy-full of adventure, travel, and youthful dreams' - Foreword Review