*From:* Anat Shmulovich <[email protected]>
*Sent:* Sunday, June 3, 2018 1:04 PM
*Subject:* A Memoir About A Ukrainian Jewish Girl in Post-Stalin Ukraine
*About Me and My Book*
My name is Anat Shmulovich. I am a concert pianist and a educator living
in New Jersey for thirty seven years. Though I was born in Ukraine, I also
lived in Moscow, Vilnius, and Israel, before coming to America. There are
many books about Jewish life. However, none of them are written about such
unique experiences like those of my family and I in Ukraine and Russia from
the 1950’s up to 1972, as described in my memoir, “Counting My Miracles.”
There are a number of themes covered here in my multi-generational family
saga: inside stories of incredible corruption, a girl taking pride in her
Judaism in the face of constant anti-Semitism, my sacrifices for becoming a
concert pianist, a four year love affair with Natan Sharansky (the famous
Russian dissident and Israeli politician), and my father’s thirty year
determination to take us out of Russia.
My father became a leader of the Refusenik Movement of the 1960’s. I left
home at the age of fifteen, in secret from my father, to study concert
piano in Moscow. Accepted into the prestigious Gnessin Music School in
Moscow, I lived alone; first in an orphanage and then in a series of
boarding houses to fulfill my dream. My bittersweet love story, which
ends with my own immigration to Israel, provides the drama that pushes the
narrative to its satisfying conclusion. Each very different chapter
represents a certain stage in my family’s story, the first of which starts
with my grandfather in the late nineteenth century.
This is a strong story with universal themes of family, freedom, rights,
and love, all of which should appeal to a wide audience. The story is
about resilience, and I believe young people will be drawn to that.
Students of history will be drawn to the story as it recounts pivotal
moments in history from a first-person perspective including the death of
Stalin, the post-Stalinist era, the Moscow Summit, the human rights
movement in the Soviet Union of the 1960’s. Some readers may be interested
in getting to know the young Natan, before Zionism and Human Activism
changed his life and outlook, as he described in his book, “Fear No Evil.”
My story can also be translated into various languages for Russian, Hebrew
and Ukrainian readers. I can also narrate it for an audiobook version in
these languages.
In the appendix of this memoir are jokes recorded by my
father and confiscated by the KGB. Although his joke book was never
returned, he was able to recall many of the jokes (16 pages in total),
covering political and social themes, which have never been published
before.
Thank you for taking the time to read this email. My memoir is completely
written and edited. I have a cover and pictures for it. If interested, I
also have a synopsis for my memoir. Please do not hesitate to contact me
if you have any questions.
Warm Regards,
Anat Shmulovich
__
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