Igor Eliseev

There is a terrible moment in Igor Eliseev’s new novel One-Two when the reader realises the reason for its strange title: Faith and Hope are conjoined twins who have been abandoned by their birth mother, experimented on at the Institute of Paediatrics and then the Institute of Traumatology, and finally dumped in a foster home where every child is given a degrading, insulting nickname. The story is narrated by Faith, with only occasional interjections from Hope, but it is she who speaks up when confronted by the indifferent cruelty of their new ‘home’ where they are told they belong in a zoo:

‘Good afternoon, Inga Petrovna. My name is Hope, and she is Faith.’

The principal gave us a sharp look that immediately accused us of all our past wrongdoings and of our future ones, too, including, first and foremost, the fact that we had had the audacity to be born, and chillily summarised:

‘That’s too long to keep in mind. You will be One, and you,’ she pointed at me ‘you will be Two.’ (p.27)

It’s heart-breaking to think of children being denied even their own names…

The resilience of these two girls who suffer appalling insults, neglect and exploitation in the Perestroika period in Russia is emblematic of the resilience of the Russian people and the suffering they have experienced during the 20th century.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/03/28/one-two-by-igor-eliseev/… (more)