Author:Wladimir Kaminer
Born in Moscow, Wladimir Kaminer emigrated to Berlin in the early '90s when he was 22. Russian Disco is a series of short and comic autobiographical vignettes about life among the émigrés in the explosive and extraordinary multi-cultural atmosphere of '90s Berlin. It's an exotic, vodka-fuelled millennial Goodbye to Berlin. The stories show a wonderful, innocent, deadpan economy of style reminiscent of the great humorists. [Several of his European editors make a comparison with current bestseller David Sedaris.] Kaminer manages to say a great deal without seeming to say much at all. He speaks about the offbeat personal events of his own life but captures something universal about our disjointed times.
It's Berlin's Trainspotting, only without the drugs
—— Sunday Timesrazor sharp prose
—— Jewish ChronicleA poignant story, well worth reading
—— OKWell-written and insightful ... a rare, unmissable memoir
—— HeatReal power … compelling reading … his book often has the intensity of a thriller
—— Craig Brown , Mail on SundaySharp, touching and genuinely inspiring
—— Sunday TimesAn honest, engrossing and uplifting read
—— Good Book GuideFunny, touching, inspiring and told in such a way that it becomes impossible to resist
—— Glasgow Evening Times