num_pages: 168
description: This is an extraordinary personal testament, the story of one boy’s triumph in the face of impossible obstacles. Born with cerebral palsy in Moscow, Ruben Gallego was hidden away in Soviet state institutions by his maternal grandfather, the secretary general of the Spanish Communist Party in the 1960s. His was a boyhood spent in orphanages, hospitals, and old-age homes, a life of emotional deprivation and loss of human dignity.   And yet there is no self-pity here, no bitterness, only an unfailing regard for the truth. Gallego’s story is one of neglect and mistreatment but also of shared small pleasures, of courage, of the power of the human will, and of a child’s growing fascination with books and the worlds he finds in them.
language: Russian
title: White on Black
titlecomplete: White on Black
genres: Russian Literature, Biography, Modern, Contemporary, Autobiography, Russia, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, 21st Century, Memoir
ratings_count: 1264
places: Russian Federation
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: The Russian Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Angelus, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award
category: Best Translation
publisher: Mariner Books