Emil Draitser’s work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. The most recent of his twelve books of artistic and scholarly prose are In the Jaws of the Crocodile: A Soviet Memoir; Farewell, Mama Odessa: A Novel; and Stalin’s Romeo Spy: The Remarkable Rise and Fall of the KGB’s Most Daring Operative. A three-time recipient of grants from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, Draitser currently teaches Russian at Hunter College in NYC.
Why would a girl of fourteen choose a minor key? Let Chopin carry you away, just as he does Nina, who brings the revolution to the keys of a prewar Steinway.
“Nina, you’re next,” they whisp…
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