Defenseless

“It’s like if Lolita were not a teenage girl that an older man dreams about, but a boy whom a middle-aged woman would court and manipulate.” “An amazing adventure dedicated to coming of age, and an impressive memory of a... time and place unlike any other.” “When the hero enters into a forbidden love affair, the education he desperately needs is accompanied by his sexual awakening.” This is how American readers perceived Joseph Richter's novel “Defenseless.” Of course, they also appreciated the “emotional intelligence” that fills the life of a Moscow “advanced” teenager - with its semi-forbidden exhibitions, uncensored books, and underground apartment concerts of famous bards. And the great poet Bakyt Kenzheev, who also read the novel in English, felt in it the unique flavor of a bygone era, a time of anticipation for change - and managed to convey it in a brilliant translation into Russian.