Dressed for a Dance in the Snow

Women's Voices from the Gulag

By: Monika Zgustova

Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya

An unexpectedly uplifting account of women’s suffering and resilience in Stalin’s forced-labor camps, diligently transcribed in the kitchens and living rooms of nine survivors.

The pain inflicted by the gulags has cast a long shadow over Soviet-era history. Zgustova’s collection of interviews with former female prisoners not only chronicles the hardships of the camps, but also serves as testament to the power of beauty in the face of adversity.

Where one would expect to find only hopelessness and despair, Zgustova has unearthed tales of love, art, and friendship that endured and even flourished in times of tragedy. These stories, collected in the vein of Svetlana Alexievich’s Nobel Prize-winning oral histories, turn one of the darkest periods of the Soviet era into a song of human perseverance, in a way that reads as an intimate family history.

©2020 Monika Zgustova (P)2020 Scribd Audio

Scattered and haphazard

I've listened to several books on the topic. This one doesn't have structure. The narrator also got on my nerves with occasional chuckles acne occasional exaggerated emotional readings.