Martin Booth’s fictional history of Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950s.

Presumed dead by the British Government, a convicted British spy survives 20 years in a Soviet labour camp. Eventually freed from the gulag in the 1970s, he finds he has no reason to return to the West - he is now Russian in everything but birth. He eventually becomes a local schoolmaster - much loved by all the village.
Shortlisted
The Booker Prize 1998
Published by
Dewi Lewis
Publication date

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Martin Booth

Martin Booth

About the Author

An internationally renowned writer and biographer, Martin Booth was also an accomplished novelist.
More about Martin Booth