The Desert of Milk and Honey

The third book of memoirs of Yuri Kolker retraces the outset of his life in Israel: the joys and sorrows of a refugee who had fled the USSR in the Orwellian year of 1984; the collisions of everyday life and spiritual nature, love and friendship; and the cultural situation in the Russian-speaking Israel and the Russian West. The memoir highlights the unusual plight of a Russian poet submerged into non-Russian milieu of a lofty but alien idealism. The protagonist chooses both a pattern of behaviour which is both unexpected and unique. The book rests on Kolker's archive files including his correspondence with his fellow Russian writers in the Western Europe and the USA.