num_pages: 160
description: David Bezmozgis's remarkable stories have already been acclaimed in the US and Canada when three appeared almost simultaneously in the New Yorker, Harper's and Zoetrope. In the space of a few weeks, these magazines introduced readers to the Bermans - Bella and Roman and their son Mark - Russian Jews who have fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams.Natasha brings the Bermans - and the Russian Jewish enclaves of Toronto - to life in stories full of big, desperate, utterly believable consequence. In 'Tapka', six-year-old Mark's first experiments in English bring ruin and near tragedy to the neighbours upstairs. In 'Roman Berman, Massage Therapist', Roman and Bella stake all their hopes for Roman's business on their first, humiliating dinner with a North American family. In the title story, a stark, funny anatomy of first love, we witness Mark's sexual awakening at the hands of his fourteen-year-old cousin, a new immigrant from the New Russia.Bezmozgis writes with clarity and compassion about the pains and joys of immigration. Sad but comic, his stories are the literature of an immigrant community whose story has yet to be told, and their chronicler possesses an extraordinary gift.
language: English
title: Natasha and Other Stories
titlecomplete: Natasha and Other Stories
genres: Contemporary, Canadian Literature, Jewish, Literary Fiction, Short Stories, Russia, Canada, Fiction, Literature, Collections
ratings_count: 1859
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Guardian First Book Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best First Book in Caribbean and Canada, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Danuta Gleed Literary Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize
category: Fiction
publisher: CCV