Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Big Green Tent  By  cover art

The Big Green Tent

By: Ludmila Ulitskaya, Polly Gannon - translator
Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $34.94

Buy for $34.94

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The Big Green Tent epitomizes what we think of when we imagine the classic Russian novel.

With epic breadth and intimate detail, Ludmila Ulitskaya's remarkable work tells the story of three school friends who meet in Moscow in the 1950s and go on to embody the heroism, folly, compromise, and hope of the Soviet dissident experience. These three boys - an orphaned poet; a gifted, fragile pianist; and a budding photographer with a talent for collecting secrets - struggle to reach adulthood in a society where their heroes have been censored and exiled. Rich with love stories, intrigue, and a cast of dissenters and spies, The Big Green Tent offers a panoramic survey of life after Stalin and a dramatic investigation into the prospects for individual integrity in a society defined by the KGB. Each of the central characters seeks to transcend an oppressive regime through art, a love of Russian literature, and activism. And each of them ends up face-to-face with a secret police that is highly skilled at fomenting paranoia, division, and self-betrayal. A man and his wife both become collaborators without the other knowing; an artist is chased into the woods, where he remains in hiding for four years; a researcher is forced to deem a patient insane, damning him to torture in a psychiatric ward. Ludmila Ulitskaya's novel belongs to the tradition of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Pasternak: It is a work consumed with politics, love, and belief - and a revelation of life in dark times.

©2010 Ludmila Ulitskaya; Translation copyright 2015 by Bela Shayevich (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Featured Article: Essential Russian Authors to Know in Audio


Don’t be daunted by the towering reputations of Russia’s literary giants. Listening is the perfect way to appreciate the masters. Russia is a sprawling country with a rich and complex history, which is reflected in its literature. Whether you’re keen on brushing up on classic Russian literature or you want to find a new author to explore, we’ve rounded up 13 of the best Russian authors, classic and contemporary, whose work you should know.

What listeners say about The Big Green Tent

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    36
  • 4 Stars
    20
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    42
  • 4 Stars
    14
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    19
  • 3 Stars
    10
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Modern female Russian writer writing a saga starting with Stalin's death and ending with the poet Brodsky's. It also 3 male frie

Three male friends and to a lesser extent 3 female fiends
It is equivalent to War and Peace for the depth and development of character and for the fullness of ideas

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Engaging

A fascinating collection of inter-related stories rather than a conventional novel, the book offers a fascinating study of dissident life in Russia in the decades after Stalin's death.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Expresses life's beauty tragedy & unfathomability

Wow. This book is anything but a clear-cut, clean & tidy story with a happy ending. It really made me feel the complexity of this earthly existence. Sometimes everything seems meaningless. Life can be cruel and tragic. But there are these glimmers of hope and transcendence in the forms of poetry, music, friendship, and compassion that are a steady theme throughout the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Complex because the story is big

Wonderful book about life in USSR before and after the fall. How rough and cruel life was.Something I don’t think we understand. Even the Playground was crueler.Russia has never had a good government so many Russians look out at the world from a different base of experience. If there is never a good government that’s very different.Then there is the other side, the compassion and stronger mutual support. For me the book just got better and better.Tolstoy. Honest story telling not literary games.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

War and Peace for 1950-1970

Fascinating and intricate story line. Some of the single stories are a bit confusing to follow, but overall brings a good and realistic portraiture of society and individual characters, their feelings and emotions.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!