One More Year

A numbing, almost debilitating melancholia infects the exiled, as Sana Krasikov shows in this haunting debut collection.

Set primarily in the United States, Krasikov's tender stories highlight the struggle of those who have left their homeland, mainly out of necessity, but occasionally of their own free will.

Her characters are Georgians and Russians with a stolid sense of making do when circumstances turn against them. Many of them are young women, forced to wait on tables in greasy diners or care for the elderly, while hoping to find an American who will marry them and thereby legitimise their residency status.

America, however, is a hard place to live if you're desperate, and for many of Krasikov's characters the light of contentment shines dimly at the end of a very long tunnel indeed.
Unfortunately, going 'back' isn't all it's cracked up to be either, as Krasikov shows in the last two stories in the book. Sometimes, she seems to be saying in her beautifully sad way, you just can't win.