Sadness and joy, hopelessness and hopes alternate in the novels, stories and tales of Masha Traub, who brilliantly debuted in 2007 with the deeply sincere novel "Get Ready, We Are Leaving". After that, there were many more books, humorously funny and poignantly sad. Some of them, such as "Diary of a First Grader's Mom" and "Little House in the South", have been adapted into feature films.
In her new book "Market-Station", Masha Traub carefully collects the fragments of memories through the aromas and tastes of a European market and the dusty "market-station" of an Ossetian village. This is a nostalgic, warm prose about how food, smells, and random encounters become recipes for human happiness.
"This book was written so easily, as if I was used to cooking soup for lunch. 'Bazar', as it was called in my rural childhood, or 'market', as it was called in the cities, is my favorite place and my favorite theme. Smells, tastes, conversations, random acquaintances - entire destinies and feature-length plots race before your eyes while you choose meat or tomatoes. This place has special rituals, rules of behavior, its own special language. A random purchase can turn into a friendship for many years or simply lift your spirits for an entire day. And the station, the one from my childhood, adjacent to the market, brings the warmest memories that I cannot and do not want to get rid of. Such is the 'market-station'.