Road to Volgograd

“‘The most popular writer with us is Alan Sillitoe. Do you know his work?’
‘It’s a bit rough,’ said Alan Sillitoe.

The conversation took place in Moscow, where Sillitoe found himself talking to an unknown student of English. It was in April, 1963, the month he spent in the Soviet Union.
In that month Sillitoe ate ‘A course of trout taken from the ice-holes of Baikal that morning’. He drank whisky with writers in Volgograd. He strolled along the Nevski Prospect in Leningrad (watching the ‘iron-faced matelots’ of the Baltic). He watched a May Day parade in Moscow.

The uninhibited eye and ear of one of Britain’s most talented young writers absorbed all experience with excitement and interest.”