Cinco inviernos

Cinco inviernos / Five Winters

Non-fiction , 2022

Alfaguara

Pages: 272

An eyewitness account of the fall of the Soviet Union at the 90’s and an intimate personal journey.

In 1992 Olga Merino, a young journalist with a literary vocation, was given her first job as a correspondent. Her destination, Moscow, was not the one she had dreamed of. These were the turbulent times that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, a difficult, chaotic country on the brink of civil war, in which Olga Merino witnessed, among many other events, the assault on the parliament with tanks, the war in Chechnya, and the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. The accelerated transformation of the ruins of an empire into a revived world power offers an incomparable perspective on the origins of Putin's Russia today.

A mixture of literary journalism, chronicle and diary, the most personal pages of this special book abound in the charm of Russian culture and language, in the indomitable character of its people, and the author’s fleeting love affair with the handsome Serguéi. Contemplated in hindsight, the young aspiring writer’s five winters in Russia paved the way for – as put by Camus – an invincible summer.

“This is the best book of a year that is just beginning. And it will remain so for the rest of the year. Nothing else published will make as much of an impact on me as Olga Merino has managed to with Cinco inviernos.” Karina Sainz Borgo

“A woman alone in search of her path (and vocation) amidst the ruins of the last utopia.” El Mundo

"Merino ofrece mucho más que periodismo. Como ya lo hizo en su novela La forastera, se abre en canal y rasga con su prosa el pecho de quien la lee. Estas páginas componen un manuscrito político e histórico, y por supuesto periodístico, qué duda cabe, pero es también la trastienda de una vocación, una bitácora que se lee con desgarro y urgencia, un libro que rompe muy adentro y con el que para llorar hace falta el cuerpo entero." Zenda Libros

«Una estupenda crónica repleta de reflexiones y anécdotas sobre la cultura rusa.» Manuel Rodríguez Rivero, Babelia