Natasha: And Other Stories

Basis for the film Natasha

Winner of The Commonwealth Writers' First Book Prize for Canada and the Caribbean

The Toronto Book Award

Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction

A dazzling debut—and a publishing phenomenon— Natasha: And Other Stories is the tender, savagely funny collection from a young immigrant who has taken the critics by storm.

Few readers had heard of David Bezmozgis before May 2003, when Harper's, Zoetrope, and The New Yorker all printed stories from his forthcoming collection. In the space of a few weeks, America thus met the Bermans—Bella and Roman and their son, Mark—Russian Jews who have fled the Riga of Brezhnev for Toronto, the city of their dreams.

Told through Mark's eyes, the stories in Natasha possess a serious wit and uniquely Jewish perspective that recall the first published stories of Bernard Malamud and Philip Roth, not to mention the work of Jhumpa Lahiri, Nathan Englander, and Adam Haslett.

"Scary good . . . Not a line or note in the book rings false." — Esquire

"Extraordinary . . . [Recalls] the work of Babel, Roth, Saul Bellow, and so many others . . . . This hysterical, merciless, yet open-hearted excavation of a Jewish family in the process of assimilating gives his literary predecessors a run for their money." — Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Dazzling, hilarious, and hugely compassionate narratives [written with] freshness and precision . . . Readers will find themselves laughing out loud." — People