Moscow Calling
Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent
by Angus Roxburgh
£12.99
- Paperback
- E-Book
825 in stock
Reviews
This fascinating and compellingly intelligent memoir of a foreign correspondent ... informed by love of the country and its people, is written with style, panache and wry humour
Saltire Society Non-Fiction Book of the Year judging panel (Shortlisted)
A self-critical author writing his memoirs sounds like a contradiction in terms. Angus Roxburgh, though, has produced a book that illuminates discerningly the dramatic changes that have occurred in Russia over the past 40 years, many of which he witnessed at first hand. His account is often amusing, sometimes grim (when he recalls his experience reporting wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan), but consistently perceptive'
History Today
These memoirs show us the understanding, empathy and the compassion that underpinned the knowledge and authority of Roxburgh’s reporting. A gripping story, scintillatingly told. Essential reading for any young person thinking of a career in the media. It will have you laughing out loud in places, move you close to tears in others
Scotsman
If you want a good, enthralling memoir of the great, raging days of turmoil in Russia and the USSR, as witnessed and recorded by an honest man, this is the one to read'
Mail on Sunday
Roxburgh writes beautifully, with a lyricism and descriptive touch beyond ordinary reportage and that any serious novelist would be proud of. Those looking for the memoirs of a foreign correspondent will find them in this book. But what they will find too is an elegy to Russia, by someone deeply etched by its influence and its continuing presence in his life
David Pratt
Moscow Calling is at least two books in one – a memoir if those first years in Moscow, and a wider-focused story about covering one of the twentieth century’s biggest stories: the sudden decline and fall of the Soviet Union. The threading together of his Russian friendships and the times they’ve all lived through give the book its greatest strength
Scottish Review of Books
Nobody has a better ear for Russia than Angus Roxburgh - a joy to read, often very funny, often profoundly sad, and in both respects a good reflection of the Russian experience
Today programme (BBC)
If you are looking for the Russia beyond the political cliché then this is the book for you. An intimate and incisive account of a famous journalist’s long-term relationship with the country, a relationship as complex and intense as any Russian novel
Peter Pomerantsev, author of 'Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible'
About the Book
In a career spanning forty years, Angus Roxburgh lived and worked in Russia as a literary translator, as Moscow correspondent of the Sunday Times and the BBC, and as a media consultant to the Kremlin. He witnessed Russian history unfolding at first hand - from the darkest days of communism and the Cold War, through the exhilaration of Gorbachev's perestroika reforms and the chaos of Yeltsin's rebuilding of capitalism, to the authoritarian Russia of Putin.
Moscow Calling is his story of those momentous years. Part history, part travelogue, it takes the reader from the muddy suburbs of communist Moscow to the corridors of Putin's Kremlin, from the Baltic to Siberia, from artists' studios to the war-zone of Chechnya. Written with passion and humour, and a deep knowledge of the experiences and concerns of ordinary Russians, it is the essential background for understanding Russia today.
The Author
Angus Roxburgh
Angus Roxburgh studied Russian and German at Aberdeen University. A distinguished journalist and broadcaster, he was Sunday Times Moscow correspondent (1987-89), BBC Moscow correspondent (1991-97) and BBC Europe correspondent (1998-2005). From 2006-2009 he was media consultant to the Kremlin, and is now a freelance writer and journalist. He is the author of the acclaimed The Strongman: Vladimir Putin and the Struggle for Russia and was consultant on the award-winning BBC documentaries, The Second Russian Revolution, and Putin, Russia and the West.You may also like…
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