The Foreign Service Journal, November 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2013 33 Daughter is his fourth novel. He lives in Massachusetts and writes fiction in his spare time. Looking for Sarah: A Story of Survival Margarita Gokun Silver, CreateSpace, 2012, $11.58, paperback, 391 pages. This novel follows the tales of two Jew- ish women in two time spans of Russian history. Left behind in Csarist Russia in 1916, Sarah later reunites with her brother and, despite having already established a life in the Soviet Union, makes the daring decision to defect. In alternating chapters, the book also traces the hardships of Sonya, Sarah’s great-granddaughter, who exposes the secret of her great- grandmother to a Soviet official who is also her romantic partner. Abandoned and pregnant, Sonya seeks to learn more about Sarah and, in doing so, completely alters the course of her own and her family’s lives. Silver portrays the adversity faced by Jews in the long and agonizing period of Russian transition from czarism to the com- munist era. Through the lenses of two women separated by time and distance, yet conjoined by suffering and hardship, Silver explores their lives during the Russian Revolution, Stalinism, the Holocaust and the Soviet Union. Margarita Gokun Silver is an author, artist and Yale gradu- ate who grew up in communist Moscow. Today she is posted in Madrid with her husband, an FSO with the Department of Com- merce. A cross-cultural coach, she mentors expatriates and is the author of The Culture Shock Tool Kit: Three Strategies for Manag- ing Culture Shock (see p. 43). Murder in Mombasa Robert E. Gribbin, published by author, 2013, $2.99, e-book, 169 pages. This mystery tells the story of the murder of a Kenyan girl from the perspective of the U.S. consul in Mombasa. The suspect is an American seaman, but his alibi seems to prove him innocent. Still, the Kenyan authorities feel that they must hold some- one accountable. As the police and the public yearn for a suspect, it becomes clear that the defendant faces the distinct possibility of false con- viction. But if the sailor’s alibi is confirmed, who did it? In a simi- lar murder case, the perpetrator, an American military man, had recently been granted immunity. That outcome still smoldered in many Kenyans’ memories, and they were anxious for justice. This work of fiction is based on a real murder case that took place in Kenya during the 1980s, when the author served as a consul at Embassy Mombasa. It gives insight into U.S.-Kenyan relations of that era and the difficulties this consul-turned-author encountered during his challenging assignment. Robert E. Gribbin was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya before serving for 35 years in the Foreign Service in 14 African nations. He was ambassador to the Central African Republic from 1993 to 1995 and to Rwanda from 1996 to 1999, and is the author of In the Aftermath of Genocide: The U.S. Role in Rwanda (iUni- verse, 2005). Today he writes, teaches and undertakes short-term assignments for the Department of State. This book is available through iBooks and also fromwww.sma- shwords.com. Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices Peter Aleshkovsky (translated by Nina Shevchuk-Murray), Russian Life Books, 2013, $14.40, paperback, 332 pages. Two collections of short stories, separated in time by the post-USSR Russian transfor- mation, are used to create Peter Alesh- kovsky’s unusual novel. The works from 1990 and 2010 are presented together to allow readers to witness the depth of Rus- sia’s political and cultural transition through the semantic shifts in these very rich and personal pieces. Despite borrowing from Russian greats like Nikolai Leskov and Nikolai Gogol, Aleshkovsky distinguishes his own version of Stargorod , which means “an old town” in Russian, with allusions and humor that those familiar with evolving Russian culture are sure to enjoy. His stories are full of poetic detail and offer artful and intuitive dialogue that evokes feelings of humanity and com- munity. Stargorod is the third novel by Peter Aleshkovsky—a well- known Russian writer and archaeologist, whose works also include Skunk: A Life (Glas, 1997)—to be translated into English. And it is the second translated by Nina Shevchuk-Murray, a Foreign Service officer who was born in the Ukrainian city of L’viv. A translator of poetry and prose from the Russian and Ukrainian languages, she previously translated Aleshkovsky’s Fish: A History of One Migration. Continued on page 38