With Dersu the Hunter

I read With Dersu The Hunter in 2008, it has stuck with me and so almost 12 years later I am finally reviewing it. The author Anne White is from Ukraine, born 1896, Stanford grad, teacher and American immigrant. She wrote dozens of young-adult books in the 1950s, some well received at time, but she has become somewhat obscure today (she died in 1980). This particular novel is one of her more obscure works. That is too bad as it is really good, probably one of her best works from a literary view. It is an adaptation of Dersu the Trapper by Russian author V. K. Arseniev, which is a famous (in Russia) memoir about the first European explorations of eastern Siberia in the early 19th century. The memoir was even more famously made into a show more film by Akira Kurosawa, in 1975, which is oddly how it became known to Western readers (Kurosawa known for his Samurai adaptions of Old West movies). As for Arseniev.. one might read his original memoir but it is old and heavy while this adaptation has a light magical quality without being far from the truth. My journey started with the Kurosawa film, then White and finally the Arseniev memoir. And there is John Vaillant's The Tiger set in the same area which references to old man Dersu. For "Adventures in the Taiga" one can't go wrong with any of these but With Dersu The Hunter holds a special place. show less