Martin Booth’s fictional history of Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s.

Presumed dead by the British Government, a convicted British spy survives 20 years in a Soviet labour camp. Eventually freed from the gulag in the 1970s, he finds he has no reason to return to the West - he is now Russian in everything but birth. He eventually becomes a local schoolmaster - much loved by all the village.

Shortlisted
The Booker Prize 1998
Published by
Dewi Lewis
Publication date
Martin Booth

Martin Booth

About the Author

An internationally renowned writer and biographer, Martin Booth was also an accomplished novelist.
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