Say Cheese

Soviet dissident Vassily Aksyonov talks about his latest novel, Say Cheese: Soviets & the Media. It is a fictional account of a group of Soviet photographers who venture to publish their works without the approval of the Communist Party. Expelled from the Soviet Union in 1980, Aksyonov describes his novel as metaphorical: the photographers represent Metropol, the writers' group headed by Aksyonov which led to his expulsion. Trained in the Soviet Union as a medical doctor, he now is a professor of Russian literature at George Mason University. Also discussed is In Search of Melancholy Baby: A Russian in America, a travelogue published in 1986 detailing Aksyonov’s impressions of life in the United States. In addition, he discusses Soviet education and the “miraculous rise” of Mikhail Gorbachev. close