Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Madonna from Russia

2.3/5 ( ratings)

The picaresque story of 96-year-old Lily Bourbon, who marries her way from prostitute to Poet Laureate in the USSR and finds a new life in the U.S.
Lily was a beautiful young prostitute recruited by the Bolsheviks to service the Communist elite. As a result of a fortuitous marriage to Andrei Bourbon, famous poet, futurist and artistic associate of Malevich and Mayakovsky, her own verse is delivered to the official Communist newspapers, together with an entirely invented revolutionary biography. Before long, she is made poet laureate and feted as an idealized symbol of the Soviet era, while Andrei, after being incarcerated in a mental hospital by Lily, disappears in the purges. After the collapse of several marriages—and the Soviet Union—she leaves Russia for the United States. This is where we meet her, still striking-looking and engaged to a naive American, starting out again at the age of ninety-six. Following further bizarre and picaresque adventures, she reaches for her greatest honour yet—to be "Queen Lily the First" of the newly created island state of Grande Bravo.

Language: English

Pages: 240

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers

Release: June 01, 2006

ISBN: 0720612551

ISBN 13: 9780720612554

Madonna from Russia

2.3/5 ( ratings)

The picaresque story of 96-year-old Lily Bourbon, who marries her way from prostitute to Poet Laureate in the USSR and finds a new life in the U.S.
Lily was a beautiful young prostitute recruited by the Bolsheviks to service the Communist elite. As a result of a fortuitous marriage to Andrei Bourbon, famous poet, futurist and artistic associate of Malevich and Mayakovsky, her own verse is delivered to the official Communist newspapers, together with an entirely invented revolutionary biography. Before long, she is made poet laureate and feted as an idealized symbol of the Soviet era, while Andrei, after being incarcerated in a mental hospital by Lily, disappears in the purges. After the collapse of several marriages—and the Soviet Union—she leaves Russia for the United States. This is where we meet her, still striking-looking and engaged to a naive American, starting out again at the age of ninety-six. Following further bizarre and picaresque adventures, she reaches for her greatest honour yet—to be "Queen Lily the First" of the newly created island state of Grande Bravo.

Language: English

Pages: 240

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers

Release: June 01, 2006

ISBN: 0720612551

ISBN 13: 9780720612554

More books from Thomas Moore

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

4.2/5 ( ratings)

A Florentine Tragedy

The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming an Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart

4.3/5 ( ratings)

The Buddha and the Terrorist

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Intimate Kisses: The Poetry of Sexual Pleasure

God's Breath: Sacred Scriptures of the World -- The Essential Texts of Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Suf

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

4.6/5 ( ratings)

Saying Yes to Life: (Even the Hard Parts)

The World Is a Waiting Lover: Desire and the Quest for the Beloved

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Moore's Irish Melodies: The Illustrated 1846 Edition

3.7/5 ( ratings)

There is No Road: Proverbs by Antonio Machado

4.2/5 ( ratings)

The Complete Poems Of Sir Thomas Moore, Volume 1

4.4/5 ( ratings)

The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore: A New Edition, Collected and Arranged by Himself: Complete in One Volume

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Tis the Last Rose of Summer

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 4 With His Letters and Journals

4.8/5 ( ratings)

Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 2 With His Letters and Journals

4.6/5 ( ratings)

Passport to Yesterday

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?