
Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Bowlby
About this listen
J. is a smuggler living in Russia, making his living fencing the flotsam of communism's collapse. In Istanbul he takes a commission to trap an endangered Russian butterfly and decides to use it as an opportunity to smuggle V., his Russian lover who has no papers, back into her homeland. In the port of Odessa, she disappears, and J. continues alone to a small village on the Black Sea. Letters from V. begin to arrive, and as J. hunts the butterfly, he seeks a way to lure V. back into his life. Equal parts bittersweet love story, international intrigue, and one man's quest to write the perfect love letter, Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire, wrote The Tennessean, is "an amazing jewel of a story...that winks with wit [and] wears its astonishing craftsmanship lightly."
©1999 José Manuel Prieto. Translation copyright 2000 by Carol and Thomas Christensen Recorded by arrangement with Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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