Antanas Sileika’s third novel begins with a tense, cinematic scene in the Lithuanian city of Marijampole. The year is 1946, and Elena and Lukas, members of the Lithuanian resistance, have invited a group of senior Soviet officials to their engagement party. Once their guests are drunk, Lukas and Elena enter the room like Bonnie and Clyde, guns blazing. When the couple flees the scene, they leave Elena’s sister lying amid the carnage.
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soviet occupation
UNDERGROUND
by Antanas Sileika
A BED OF RED FLOWERS:
In Search of My Afghanistan
by Nelofer Pazira
Nelofer Pazira, the Afghani-Canadian star of the film Kandahar, became something of a celebrity after the film was released in the wake of Sept. 11. A Bed of Red Flowers is a memoir of Pazira’s middle-class childhood in Kabul, Afghanistan – much of which was endured under the Soviet occupation – and her subsequent escape to Pakistan, and, eventually, Canada, where she lives and works today. Read more…