on a trip to delhi, a long time ago, i took along with me two russian books borrowed from the school library. one was a rip-roaring medieval adventure i took great pleasure in reading as fast as i could on the train ride to delhi, and the other was crime and punishment, which i read only intermittently on the way to and completed, with many soaked pillowcases, on the way back. the latter made such a great impact on me, it drove the name of the light read i'd enjoyed so immensely right out of my mind. this i discovered years later, in class 11 and 12, when i went looking for the book in the meagre library i had already exhausted and had given up using for reading material, but found that i couldn't recall its name or the name of its author at all. i searched for the red bound soviet title about cossacks a few times in the library nonetheless, but never found it.
later, i'd google phrases like "the last cossack" and variations thereof, trying to find the book that had slipped so maddeningly from my memory, but remembering only the plot about cossacks, the name of one character and the red jacket cover, i had precious little to go on. no more. apparently google books digitised the first edition of the book in january 2010 from a copy housed at the UVA library, and even though it is only available in snippet view format, i was still able to search for the only name i remembered--adikeh, et voila! i could tell that i had indeed stumbled upon that book i thought i could never find again! it's called the cossack ambassador, and was brought out by dnipro publishers in english in 1985. the author is volodymyr malyk, and although this book appears to be one of a series featuring the swashbuckling cossack arsen zvenyhora, i cannot find any other english translations of his books. thankfully, amazon lists a used bookseller for the cossack ambassador, and worldcat tells me i can acquire it from UAlbany, so i am looking forward to re-reading it as soon as i return to binghamton! yay!
later, i'd google phrases like "the last cossack" and variations thereof, trying to find the book that had slipped so maddeningly from my memory, but remembering only the plot about cossacks, the name of one character and the red jacket cover, i had precious little to go on. no more. apparently google books digitised the first edition of the book in january 2010 from a copy housed at the UVA library, and even though it is only available in snippet view format, i was still able to search for the only name i remembered--adikeh, et voila! i could tell that i had indeed stumbled upon that book i thought i could never find again! it's called the cossack ambassador, and was brought out by dnipro publishers in english in 1985. the author is volodymyr malyk, and although this book appears to be one of a series featuring the swashbuckling cossack arsen zvenyhora, i cannot find any other english translations of his books. thankfully, amazon lists a used bookseller for the cossack ambassador, and worldcat tells me i can acquire it from UAlbany, so i am looking forward to re-reading it as soon as i return to binghamton! yay!
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