Our December Authors: Marina Aidova and Anna Horsbrugh-Porter

I wasn't expecting to find much about our author-editors, Marina Aidova and Anna Anna Horsbrugh-Porter, this month for our reading of the collection of letters, From Newbury with Love, but here's a little something...

Here's the Amnesty Magazine version of their story and Marina takes questions from activists here. Amnesty International - UK tells us how Anna came to be involved in the project. And the BBC gives the project a little coverage,

If the book, From Newbury With Love, evokes the lost worlds of the Cold War, it's also a reminder of an era when people wrote each other letters, rather than e-mails and texts.

And Marina says she regrets the lost pleasures of the letter.

"You looked at the stamp, you opened the letter, you smelt it. First, you read it very quickly, and then in the evening, when the children were in bed, my mum would take a glass of wine, light a cigarette and read and re-read and really enjoy the letter. It's physical, you see their handwriting, you keep the letters."

For those who would like a little contextual background and visual stimulus, here's an exhibition of Moscow Samizdat books and another of vintage Soviet propaganda posters.

And a bit more tangential, check out the Wikipedia enry on the Kishinev pogrom
and this memorial site and learn about a little piece of Jewish history.