Kurt Johnson Kurt Johnson i(11293035 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 [Review] The Animals in That Country Kurt Johnson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , July 2020;

— Review of The Animals in that Country Laura Jean McKay , 2020 single work novel

'Laura Jean McKay’s novel asks us to see the world through animals’ eyes.'

1 John Birmingham : Leviathan: The Unauthorised Biography of Sydney [and] David Hunt : Girt: The Unauthorised History of Australia Kurt Johnson , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , August 2018;

'Leviathan and Girt are engaging because they do what official histories shy away from – they spin a ripping yarn.'  (Introduction)

1 y separately published work icon The Red Wake : A Hybrid of Travel, History and Journalism Kurt Johnson , North Sydney : Penguin Random House Australia , 2016 11293056 2016 single work prose travel

'Kurt has long been captivated by 'the communists' from his immigrant grandparents' past, transfixed by stories of the Soviet Union, the place where history happened. In the West, the Soviet universe has long been consigned to the dustbin of history, no longer relevant to a world where the Golden Arches have supplanted the Hammer and Sickle. But what about those still living in the shadow of the USSR?

'The language and symbols of the Soviet Union have become a nostalgic brand, but after travels to the Balkans, Romania and Bulgaria, Kurt begins to suspect that for some they have retained their former sanctity. He quickly realises he must journey from these outlying countries and visit socialism's giant red heart.

'Spurred on by a growing obsession to find what remains of this old Red World, Kurt visits the far reaches of the former USSR. From frozen corners of Kyrgyzstan still rocked by ethnic riots, to the ex-KGB headquarters in Moscow; from a rocket launch on the Kazakh Steppe, to an unrecognised gangster state in Moldova; through the irradiated ruins of Chernobyl, to a gulag in Siberia.

'Staying one step ahead of the secret police, Kurt meets the people cast adrift by the collapse of the Soviet system, and the disappearance of the only world they knew. Far from lying dormant, he discovers the legacy of the Soviet Union is alive, its history shaped to serve the political ends of the Kremlin in this new Cold War.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

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