Days In The Caucasus Av Banine

<b>A scintillatingly witty memoir telling the story of a young woman''s determined struggle for freedom</b><br><br><i>We all know families that are poor but ''respectable''. Mine, in contrast, was extremely rich but not ''respectable'' at all...</i><br><br> This is the extraordinary memoir of an ''odd, rich, exotic'' childhood - of growing up in Azerbaijan in the turbulent early twentieth century, caught between East and West, tradition and modernity.<br><br> Banine remembers her luxurious home, with endless feasts of sweets and fruit; her beloved, flaxen-haired German governess; her imperious, swearing, strict Muslim grandmother; her bickering, poker-playing, chain-smoking relatives. She recalls how the Bolsheviks came, and they lost everything. How, amid revolution and bloodshed, she fell passionately in love, only to be forced into marriage with a man she loathed- until the chance of escape arrived.<br><br> By turns gossipy and romantic, wry and moving, <i>Days in the Caucasus</i> i