Book description
'A love affair through an interpreter,' said Raya. 'That's a very
cultured prospect.' Raya is a mercurial Moscow blonde who speaks no
English, and the affair she is embarking upon is with Gordon
Proctor-Gould, a visiting British businessman who speaks no Russian.
They need an interpreter; which is how Paul Manning is diverted from
writing his thesis at Moscow university to become involved in all the
deceptions of love and East-West relations. 'Imaginative and
delightful - zany characters who stick in the memory and have a
genuine life of their own. Frayn juxtaposes the humorous and the
frankly sinister into a satisfying and witty picture.' Sunday
Telegraph 'Frayn ... has been compared to Wodehouse, but here it is
Waugh to the knife.' Guardian
Michael Frayn was born in London in 1933 and began his career as a
journalist on the Guardian and the Observer. His novels include Towards
the End of the Morning, The Trick of It and A Landing on the Sun.
Headlong (1999) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while his most
recent novel, Spies, won the Whitbread Novel Award. His fifteen plays
range from Noises Off to Copenhagen, and most recently Democracy. He is
married to the biographer and critic Claire Tomalin.
