Ludmila Ulitskaya Against the State - The New Yorker

Link to Article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/weight-words

In 2010 The New Yorker published an article talking about Lyudmila's new book titled The Big Green Tent. The story is about about a man named Mikha living in post World War II Soviet Russia. Mikha arrives to work late after a long night of reading. To his surprise his colleagues covered for his late arrival. After he finds out that his colleagues covered for him he felt the need to share with them what he read about the night before. Mikha approaches an older co worker of his and shares with him a set of photographs of manuscripts that could not have be published. His co worker is astonished at the fact that Mikha has committed a crime by reading and owning these manuscripts. Mikha ends up being reported to the authorities, losing his job and ultimately his life.

The article goes into further depth of the restrictions the the Soviet Union set up during its presence in Russia and how Lyudmila used this book to open the worlds eyes toward the strict restriction that was set during her early childhood growing up there. Its a very interesting article about how she quote on quote "a book could be used to inspire a murder weapon".