Otherland

Otherland is a deeply considered work, delicately nuanced and finely detailed. Tumarkin's characters are brilliantly sardonic and often poignant, so that even minor and transient figures are vividly realised.

Judges 2011 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

Tumarkin is a consummate storyteller, and her sharp observations about the new Russia are intricately woven with her portraits of her family and their relationships. A brilliant, absorbing book about mothers, daughters, place and belonging.

Jo Case, Readings

For the most part her account is fascinating, even exhilarating, and there is barely a dead word in the book. Tumarkin's viewpoint is unfailingly insightful with an overlay of pungent Russian humour.

Robert Dessaix, The Age

The blend of background historical and cultural ballast with personal family anecdotes offers one fetching way into the metamorphoses in another culture's way of life.

Mark Thomas, Canberra Times

Otherland is for readers who love words, ideas, history, and current affairs; who enjoy going beyond the bland package holiday when they travel; who feel enriched by glimpsing the world through the eyes of cultures other than their own.

5 stars, Good Reading magazine

Part memoir, part travelogue, and part sweeping history of the tumultuous last hundred years of the Soviet Union, Maria Tumarkin's Otherland: A Journey with My Daughter, is that rare hybrid of a life narrative that manages to combine the intensely personal and political without getting either cloyingly affective or numbingly polemical. It is a compelling read and not the least of its pleasures is an idiosyncratic introduction to a host of East European writers and cultural literati's musings on language, the social dimension of memory, heroism and human suffering, the nature of art in the erstwhile Soviet Union, among other issues.

Rajender Kaur, Transnational Literature

The parts of the book where the complexities of this [mother/daughter] relationship are revealed and explored are honest and fascinating. Billie's diary entries are included, and this adds another rich layer. Tumarkin has a conversational style, full of humour and surprising, original turns of phrase. An enriching and unusual book I highly recommend.

Sue Bond, The Courier-Mail

The literary beauty of Otherland is essentially textual: multiple layers of memory and reflection, intertwining historical commentary, cultural and literary criticism, and personal reminiscence. It is at once a roadtrip of anecdotes peppered with yearning and longing as well as a politico-cultural window on a huge part of 20th century history.

Ruth Wajnryb, The Sydney Morning Herald

Thanks to this highly individual voice, Otherland is another smart and provocative read.

Judith Armstrong, ABR