Billancourt Tales (New Directions)

Written in Paris between 1928 and 1940 for an emigrant newspaper, Billancourt Tales is about the industrialized suburb of Paris where thousands of exiled Russians, including Berberova, were finding factory work and establishing homes. These fine stories, sometimes amusing, sometimes sad, portray a wide range of human emotions. All show Berberova at her very best, as graceful and subtle as Chekhov, (Anne Tyler).