Iron Curtain: A Love Story

by Vesna Goldsworthy

'A book so full of steel and compassion that it stands glitteringly apart' Rachel Cusk

'A piercingly evocative East-West love story' The Times

'Atmospheric and gloriously vivid' Guardian
____________________

Two worlds on the brink of change in a love story doomed to disaster

Milena is a Red Princess living in a Soviet Satellite state in the 1980s. She enjoys limitless luxury and limited freedom; the end of the Cold War seems unimaginable.

When she meets Jason, a confident British poet, Milena is appalled by his political naivety and his poor choice of footwear. Still, they fall into bed together, and before long Milena is secretly planning to escape to Britain.

1980s London defies her privileged expectations. The rented flat is grim and the food is disgusting but she is with the man she loves and there are no hidden cameras to record her every move. But then Milena discovers that Jason's idea of freedom hurts even more...

With sharp wit and tender precision, Vesna Goldsworthy unpicks the failures of family and state. Iron Curtain is a sly, elegant human drama that challenges the myths we tell ourselves.

'A pacy page-turner... Full of humour, pathos and poignancy' Irish Independent

'Vesna Goldsworthy's finely wrought third novel explodes into life... Potent' Spectator

'A wonderful, perfectly-pitched novel: full of delightful intrigue and wry insight about the human predicament and its unique tensions' William Boyd

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Romance, Historical, Russia, Novels, Literary Fiction

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 10, 2022

Reviews

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milena Urbanska is the privileged daughter of a Government Minister, in a Soviet Satellite state, (a Red Princess), when she meets Jason, a penniless English poet. She laughs at his naivety, but they quickly fall in love. Jason has to return to London, and asks her to give up her privileged life and travel back with him, however, she’s not sure she can do that, much as she’d like to. As the months pass though, she convinces herself that she truly loves him and begins her plans to defect to Britain, where she hopes to use her skills as an interpreter.

When Milena arrives in London, she discovers that Jason’s rented flat is appalling, especially for one used to leading the life that Milena had. However, the fact that she’s with the one she loves, and no one is following her, and there are no hidden cameras in the home, that record her every move, gives her a real sense of freedom. She’ll soon discover that Jason likes his freedom too, and that will fracture the love and the life that she’s given up so much for.

‘Iron Curtain’ gave a wonderfully interesting insight into the lives of the ‘special’ ones behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980’s - socialist aristocrats, those holding important positions within the government, high ranking party members, whilst the proletariat faced food shortages, economic stagnation and large-scale political upheaval. It also gave a real sense of 1980’s Britain, and the huge contrast between the two worlds.

With a look at the culture, history and political scene in two completely different countries, combined with the love story of two very interesting protagonists, this was a fascinating and absorbing read, and I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

*Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage Chatto and Windus for an ARC in exchange for an honest unbiased review *

[Paromjit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vesna Goldsworthy charts the trajectory of a 'love' story in this astutely observed piece of historical fiction set in the 1980s in an era of political turbulence in a unnamed Soviet communist satellite country and a changing Britain under Thatcher. Milena 'Mimi' Urbanska is a privileged Red Princess, living a life of luxury, daughter of one of the leading elite Party members, a member of the 'it' crowd, flirting with rebellion whilst being protected from any of the consequences of her behaviour. However, a tragedy stops her in her tracks, a trauma that has her changing a life that she had previously glided through. More alone and isolated, she becomes hardworking and succeeds academically, seeking to be more low key. She becomes a English translator at a Maize Research Institute, when she is asked to interpret for a visiting left leaning British poet who has won a minor poetry prize, Jason Connor.

Meeting him, she sees a handsome, louche and irresponsible man, poorly dressed, ill equipped to handle their climate, claiming an Irish ancestry, but as he is lauded and admired, her perspective begins to shift as she begins to view him through rose coloured lens. Jason states he loves her and wants her to return to London with him. She refuses, but as time goes by, her love grows as she dwells on her dissatisfactions with her comfortable life that comes at a price, the heavy surveillance, the claustrophic, and insular community, and the limitations of the controlling environment. As she plots to join Jason, she naively assumes that she can never be herself at home, willing to pay the cost of leaving her country, her family, and everything she knows. However, London is a shock, as she becomes 'Millie', finding herself living in dingy squalor and poverty, living with a Jason she begins to see more clearly, a self centred, feckless manchild who will never be able to provide for them, she must do that. Initially she is sustained by their love and her unwillingness to confront the horror that she might have made a monumental error, that is until she faces betrayal.

Goldsworthy is a storyteller of talent and wit, insightfully focusing on the failures of family, freedom, and country, comparing and contrasting the social, political and cultural differences of two such apparently different countries. Mimi and Jason's love story is one that the reader can see is doomed even as Mimi, laden with her ideals and expectations, is planning to join Jason. Jason's perceptions of his freedoms bring hurt, and a re-evaluation of their marriage which has Mimi coming full circle as she seeks retribution. This is a fascinating and riveting read, of the personal and the political, a love story set in a historically significant period of change in Britain, and with the upcoming collapse of the communist political systems, symbolised by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain in 1989. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

[Vesna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading my namesake’s novel started on the wrong footing. Ignoring the blurb which I now always do for their often misleading commercial buzzwords, from the first pages I realized that the narrator/protagonist is a “red princess”. She is the daughter of a Communist high-ranked leader, a member of the ‘New Class’ as Djilas memorably dissected in his classic reconstruction of the class system in a communist country which Goldsworthy quotes in one of the novel’s epigrams. Their sense of entitlement to an unearned luxury that make my stomach turn, as described with surgical precision in the character of Milena, brought back the memories of disgust I always felt toward “red princesses” while growing up.

I couldn’t pass a few pages before putting the novel aside again and again. Not because of the writing, which was impressively crafted, but because of the overwhelming disgust toward its main protagonist that deeply cut through me. I made a few more false starts to the point of giving up when I encountered this passage when Milena graduated from college: “I could have taken any job I wanted after graduation, but translation appealed most.” The brutal contrast to my own story was unbearably direct. Precisely because I couldn’t find a job in my profession since the jobs were routinely taken through political connections and rampant nepotism in the “new class” communist system, I turned to translation (also in English) which was thankfully available on the second market for the unemployed. It gave me not only the financial means but also a sense of elementary dignity so desperately needed, perhaps even more than basic financial sustenance, as known only to the unemployed (in the late 80s this was typical for the masses of urban educated young people whose parents declined to play political games). At this point, clinging barely to a sense of moral obligation for receiving an ARC, my reading was saved by my wonderful GR friend Joe when he joined me as a reading buddy. And how fortunate this turned out to be for me!

Through Milena’s observing eyes, who underwent a personal transformation after falling in love with a Westerner, Goldsworthy skillfully exposes the ironic twists behind the Iron Curtain ideological veils when the lenses zoom into personal lives. Loyalty and betrayal, one of the main themes in the novel, may be ideological, hovering like the sword of Damocles over the lives in a repressive society like the unnamed Eastern European country in this story, but their use and misuse in personal relations is universal with profound consequences. The same holds for opportunism, an easy way to sail through life and climb the social ladders for the morally weak. The novel shows its sameness on both sides of the Iron Curtain, just the power channels change - promotion through the Communist Party nomenklatura in the East, opportunistic association with the privileged rich/aristocracy in the West. And in the character Artemis, Milena encounters her former self, a spoiled and privileged Western version of the “red princess”. Other parallels abound, both positive and negative, as shown through several turns of events that are believable and intelligently conceived.

The most impressive aspect of the novel is Vesna Goldsworthy’s writing. It feels so effortless that it draws a reader’s attention away from the writer and brings the story and characters to a sharp focus. Her astute social criticism is embedded in seemingly light observations, even interspersed with occasional humor. It reminded me of the similar talent of another writer, Percival Everrett, who also skillfully tackles even the most gruesome issues such as racist lynching with deceptively light prose and satire. Another aspect that attests to Goldsworthy’s talent is the way she seamlessly interpolates the allegory of Medea, intersecting personal and political threads in the novel. While I have never warmed up to the main protagonist, which was not the writer’s intention anyway, I came around to experience her walk along and across the Iron Curtain line, including her own transformation, as a telling metaphor for the Medea-like times. The myths do not die easily.

I’ve just read a fascinating feature article in The New Yorker about this new novel in the context of Vesna Goldsworthy’s life and her previous works which I highly recommend.

I want to thank my two beloved friends, Joe for his generous reading companionship and Jola for her encouragingly wise words, that made me persevere for the best. My many thanks to W. W. Norton for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Daniel Shindler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This clever novel begins with an admonitory quote from Euripides’ play “ Medea”:
“ Stranger than a lover’s love is a lover’s hate. Incurable in each, the wounds they make.”

This ominous thought is soon followed by a cryptic observation in the prologue, made while watching television as the Berlin Wall is dismantled:
“ I used to love this man…And I definitely could not bear to hear Europe mentioned once more.I used to love Europe too…”

These cryptic snippets are the gateway to a journey of political and emotional discovery that is wrapped in a story combining privilege and social metaphors designed to be the levers that motivate a nation’s citizens. It is a saga that spans from 1981 through 1990 containing elements of politics, belonging, betrayal and revenge.

Milena Urbanska is a pampered “ Red Princess,” the daughter of a high ranking official in an unnamed Soviet satellite country.She is cosseted in the entitlement and luxury that befits the political status of her family.Although she loves the opulence attached to her lifestyle, Milena chafes at the scrutiny of the pervasive state controlled environment. Having had an aptitude for academics and languages, Milena holds a position as an English translator. In this capacity, she encounters a visiting British poet, Jason Connor, who projects an air of genteel aristocratic poverty that masks his underlying sense of entitlement.The two young people bask in the exploration of their differences in background and upbringing, developing an attraction that morphs into love. Jason wants Milena to come to London with him when he returns to England. Milena resists at first but reconsiders after they are separated. Milena’s visions of a less restrictive and insular environment lure her to join Jason in England.

Once the journey to England begins, the storyline connects to the opening epigraph from” Medea.” From the outset, Milena’s flight from home is fraught with adventure, navigating obstacles that threaten to derail her arrival.She ultimately settles in England during the bleakest throes of Thatcherism. Her life with Jason is rife with squalor and privations that were unknown to her behind the Iron Curtain.Ironically,Jason has immersed himself in writing a book of sonnets entitled “ The Argonauts.” The title of his seminal work metaphorically hints at the rigors of the journey in the couple’s married life and presages the betrayals lying ahead.

This narrative framework is a blend of humor and politics intermixed with a story of belonging and betrayal.Milena’s flight and odyssey provide an insightful look at the gap between ideology and reality on both sides of the political spectrum.Milena has swapped East for West but has found happiness in neither location.In coping with this realization, she begins to craft her own voice and disassemble the cocoons that have constrained her in both the East and the West.

This novel appeals because it can be read and enjoyed on several different levels. There is a love story that develops between both individuals and political entities and merges with a political meditation that is tied to a classical myth. The result is a book that should engage the interest of a wide spectrum of readers.4.5 stars

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Milena is a Red Princess living in a Soviet Satellite state in the 1980s. She enjoys limitless luxury and limited freedom; the end of the Cold War seems unimaginable.

When she meets Jason, a confident British poet, Milena is appalled by his political naivety and his poor choice of footwear. Still, they fall into bed together, and before long Milena is secretly planning to defect to Britain.

1980s London defies her privileged expectations. The rented flat is grim and the food is disgusting but she is with the man she loves and there are no hidden cameras to record her every move. But then Milena discovers that Jason's idea of freedom hurts even more...

This is a wonderful book with a very different style of narration. Milena is so 'buttoned up' because of the continuous monitoring of every move and conversation of her life in an unnamed minor communist country that the usual style of description and conversation is muted.

When Milena acts as interpreter for a poet who has come from England to receive a prize she falls in love and follows him home where she experiences an impoverished life in London in the 1980s. She has left a life of privilege as a 'Red Princess' i.e. the daughter of an influential politician to a life of squalor but she now has a degree of freedom.

I was completely absorbed in her story, she conveyed her puzzlement at differences in her old life and her new one is so many different ways. It's an unusual book in that events which have a huge impact on her are not dwelt on, there's not a great emphasis on feelings although the whole book is about love and revenge but that's because Goldsworthy has got completely inside Milena's head. I'm reading the book as a European and am used to more outpouring of feeling but this was intense and fascinating and a real insight into the communist regime.

I absolutely loved it and wish my review could better explain the beauty of the writing and the intensity of the story.

Many thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

[Louisa Fowler · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreadful. There is no interesting theme to compensate for the fact that this is just a dull story about a spoilt girl who makes a mistake: avoid.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bajkovita priča o "crvenoj princezi" koja, bez obzira na svoje greške i lutanja, uvek može da računa na zaštitu očevog političkog sistema.
Roman o moći, naivnosti i večnom pitanju – da li se iz senke jednog režima ikada zaista može pobeći?

[Peter Baran · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most attractive things to me in a new book is an unusual setting, or even better a setting that I hadn't thought was unusual but I realise I know very little about. 1980's Bulgaria, particularly being the children of the elite politicians in Bulgaria is a scenario I could probably make glib stabs at imagining, but Iron Curtain does a fascinating deep dive. Milena, as the daughter of one of the countries leaders, comes of age in comfort and privilege, she snaps at a few cultural restrictions but an opening game of Russian Roulette is a handy shorthand to the boredom and actual danger they are involved in. Dissociated from friends and family, against her better judgement she falls in love with a British poet on a cultural exchange and we eventually get a fascinating outsiders look a the Western freedom and paradise of Thatcher's Britian. The book plays some lovely Georges Mikes outsider misunderstandings with the grimy world of Shepherd's Bush basement flats, and freezing cold country houses. In the centre is Milena, dripping with disdain and mild confusion trying to make the best of scenarios that either in communism, or capitalism trap her.

Iron Curtain is a propulsive faux memoir, and Goldsworthy skewers a number of broad types, with a touch of light and shade for characterisation. Milena's poet partner is every "Middle-Class communist British artist" in the eighties, flirting with dregs of an ancestral Irish heritage and more than happy to live on his Giro, or handout from downwardly mobile parents. He is - and this is the secret of the mild generosity here - talented, though being a talented poet isn't worth an awful lot when living on borrowed floorspace and bringing up a child. The hardest job the book has to do is sympathetically explain why Milena - who found her poet somewhat pathetic on their first meeting - would then fall in love at long distance to risk everything, and the book just about convinces on that front. Certainly the reversal to type near the end is much more convincing, a problem when stuffing the book with comic caricatures. If there is a problem here it is trying to settle on the point of the story - Milena is such a fascinating protagonist and companionable storyteller that the book feels like it ends abruptly. Perhaps its the tale of an outsider in 80's London, but I hugely enjoyed the communist set first half, and was looking forward to seeing Milena talk about the fall of communism (there is a framing device at the start which is set after - but this insider viewpoint would have been fascinating).

I've been recently bemoaning the fact that period dramas, and books, are now being set in my lifetime (I'm old!) so the other job a book like this has to do is convince me that it really feels contemporaneously written. And on that front the sense of a grimy London, and the few cultural references sold the bit I knew on me, so the bit I didn't (Bulgaria) convinced by proxy. I really enjoyed Iron Curtain, there was enough introspection within the character of Milena to take her outside her privilege, and there are other characters whose secrets are teased at. The biggest prejudice it managed to easily dismantle was that the UK of the 80's would be easily better that a Soviet satellite state - the role of poverty and society makes a huge difference. It isn't an apolgia for communism, but it also makes a point that you can't eat and drink a free press.
[NetGalley]

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

enjoyed the historical fiction aspect but the rest was meh - found the chemistry between the main characters lacking and the writing middling. liked it enough to finish but won't be recommending to friends

[Tina Tamman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel tells a story, and consecutively at that - quite unusual these days. Also unusually, the author's personal circumstances are of relevance here: she grew up and attended university in what was Yugoslavia, so she knows and remembers living beyond the Iron Curtain first-hand. The first half of the novel happens in an unnamed Soviet-bloc country, which must have drawn heavily on her own memories. The second half is set in England where she now lives, so she may have re-lived her early days writing about Milena, her heroine. However, I soon got bored with the English section, but the ending is clever. The more I think about it, the cleverer it seems. If you remember what happened to Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, Milena returned to her homeland when the country was about to change. The ending will make me think of the book and Milena's future for quite a long time to come.

[Kyra Prins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A romantic novel that is about more than the lovestory of two people, investigating the contrasts (of alleged 'freedom') between capitalism, set in the England of Thatcher, and life behind the Iron Curtain

tnx leo & aaf voor dit kadootje

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love takes Milena from a privileged life in an unnamed post Union Soviet state to a life of poverty in London with an aspiring poet. Through Milena’s relationship with Jason and her growing understanding of her and her family’s power across borders, Goldsworthy explores the process of defining and accepting yourself and finding your place in the world.

As soon as I finished, I wanted more. What happens to these people next?

[Brianne]

I genuinely don't know how I feel about this book. On the one hand, I fell asleep a couple of times while reading it, but I was also interested enough in finishing the book to see what happened.

I enjoyed the writing style, but had trouble connecting to the characters. Idk....if you're looking for a heavy, atmospheric, character-driven, somewhat open-ended read that's set in a rather dreary and bleak setting, then this might be for you.

Ultimately, I'm happy I read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. If you're looking for something different, give it a try. Also, I think I will read more by this author because I enjoyed her writing style.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In an unnamed Soviet bloc country in the 1980s Milena is a Red Princess, the daughter of one of the country’s leaders and thus leads a privileged life far removed from the shortages and restrictions of ordinary people. But nonetheless Milena is already showing signs of rebellion and when she meets a rather wild Irish poet who has been invited to perform his work at a Festival and to whom she has been assigned as an interpreter events are set in train which will alter her life for ever. The novel is an insightful exploration of the personal and the political and what it means to be “free” and a vividly atmospheric portrait of life behind the iron curtain compared to life in England. East and West come face to face and Milena is forced to choose between them. Vesna Goldsworthy is a wonderful storyteller, a master of her craft and the book is pitch perfect and expertly paced. At its heart there’s a love story of a sort but it’s also an intelligent and non-judgemental examination of different and opposing cultures, ideologies and world-views. I found the book enormously enjoyable, a real page turner and a great read. Highly recommended.

[Lilibet Bombshell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just not the love story between a boy and a girl (though a boy and a girl do fall in love, I suppose).

Iron Curtain: A Love Story is about Milena, one of communism’s Red Princesses, and though one might be tricked into thinking this is a traditional love story, it’s not. Milena is in love with one thing and one thing only, and that is her homeland, behind the Iron Curtain. That’s the genius behind this whole book, a communist Cold War twist on “There’s no place like home”.

Milena Urbanska ran away from her communist homeland not because she hated communism and wanted to defect; no, she ran away because she was young, she had witnessed something traumatizing when she was younger that had shifted some of her thinking, she didn’t want to be forced into marriage at her parent’s hands, she didn’t want to be a politiburo wife, and she was sick of being who she was and of everyone knowing everything about her and constantly being a subject of conversation across the country. So she decides to slip away to England and marry the young Irish poet she had fallen in love with when he was in her country a few years prior, even though she hates the western world. She’s hoping their love and his poetry fame will make up for living in a Capitalist society.

But best laid plans…

England is both everything she thought it might be and nothing like she knew it would be. She hates it. There’s only two things she loves about England: fresh vegetables and her in-laws. At first, she’s deliriously in love with her husband, too. But in Thatcher-era England, being poor was more than a kick in the teeth, and it didn’t help that Milena’s husband seemed to fancy himself a man who ran on Lady Luck and whimsy.

This novel is full of a specific type of ennui I love: A sense of listlessness, of not knowing what to do with oneself. It’s the feeling of being in some kind of suspended state between two choices or situations you’ve been presented with but not being able to determine which is the lesser of two evils. You hate your life, but either not enough to leave it or you’re too stubborn to give up just yet.

I’m a sucker for Cold War-era fiction. Well, I’m a sucker for Russian historical fiction in general. I loved the research and detail put into this book, both on the Russian and British sides. It couldn’t have been easy researching everything from Thatcher economics to Russian Nationalism and how one could fly from the USSR to Cuba and how many different stops they could make while doing so.

Vesna Goldworthy’s characters blaze to life, each so distinct in voice, style, and worldview they not only form the unshakeable framework for this novel but they also create the ebb and flow around Milena, moving her around in that suspended state, all making impacts large and small on her life and decisions as they go.

I can’t say anything else about this book other than it was a tremendously lovely read that I highly recommend.

I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Political Fiction/Satire/5 Star Reads

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

After another title abandoned from my quest to read #20BooksofWinter I am back on track with a most enjoyable novel that I romped through in a couple of days, pausing only to think about the way we tend to absorb propaganda about other countries without having enough information about them or about the purposes of the propaganda we unwittingly consume.

As Lolly K Dandeneau at BookStalkerBlog indicated in her enticing review Iron Curtain is more than a love story. Vesna Goldsworthy FRSL grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Serbia, but moved to Britain in 1986, not long before the Gorbachev reforms and the collapse of communist regimes throughout Europe in 1989 and 1990.  Her novel, ostensibly about a passionate love affair between a visiting English poet and one of the privileged elite in an unnamed Soviet republic, is also about a cultural clash that goes beyond the obvious differences between Thatcherite capitalism and a failing centrally controlled communist economy.

Milena's father is a Soviet hero and a Big Deal politically, so she is a 'Red Princess', living in a sumptuous mansion, and able to travel freely to buy consumer goods that ordinary citizens can only dream of.  More than that, her father's power means that when she gets into any kind of scrape he can fix it.  Even ghastly ones that would have catastrophic consequences in the West.

But Milena isn't happy.  She is scornful about her parents and bored by her privilege.  So she is only too vulnerable to the charms of Jason, a middling poet from Britain who is visiting to take part in a festival (which has been organised for diplomatic reasons, not because he's the genius he thinks he is.)  When he says he loves her, it's only too easy for her to use her unwitting father's connections to help her escape in the guise of an interpreter for a friend she then abandons. Before long she is living in an overpriced squalid London flat, after a very small (and unromantic) registry wedding.

The contrast between her former lifestyle and 1980s London is stark...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/06/26/i...

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for my honest review.
Rounded down from 2.5 stars.

This book was very readable, however, the main character was whiny, being the daughter of a Communist official, and I kept waiting for something "big" to happen, which never materialized. Everything in this novel seemed to be massively blown out of proportion, making nothing seem believable or anything I truly cared about.
A spoiled rich, privileged girl who defies her parents by first becoming an interpreter and later leaving the country. A visiting poet who we find out is actually extremely unsuccessful (how/why is he travelling then??) They somehow fall madly in love in 2 days time. The poets family is described as poor, but then they don't seem that bad off... maybe just messy? A most catastrophic event is eluded to which has me waiting for the climax, which turns out to be something so mundane and commonplace that I just had to wonder what the author was thinking stringing her readers along. Maybe she was just trying to show the downfall of a girl who has never known hard times? This is all we get?? What a let-down, along with every character being unlikeable and boring.
This book left me feeling unsatisfied and shaking my head. And the title, equally perplexing as what we really have here is the trajectory of a failed love story - one in which I couldn't wait for to end.

[Sarah W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel brings together two unlikely figures - a privileged daughter of Communist elites and an impoverished British poet - in Cold War Europe. They fall in love (or more accurately, in lust) and Milena makes plans to leave her protected existence behind the Iron Curtain to live with her lover in London. But things aren't how she thought - her lover lacks the financial resources to support them in a capitalist world and Milena deeply misses the comforts of her homeland. An interesting read and one that challenges one's conceptions of live behind the Iron Curtain.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Milena, the daughter of a powerful government official, flees her Communist country for England to be with Jason, the man she loves. But after reuniting in London, she discovers that Jason, and the other side of the Iron Curtain, aren’t what she had hoped for.

A bitter slice of life drama with a vivid Cold War setting.

[Lavinia · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.6*

[Oana David · Rating 4 out of 5]

E greu să explici de ce o carte care ți-a plăcut foarte mult nu ți-a plăcut îndeajuns, dar asta chiar este un exemplu edificator. Este mult mai puțin politică decât lasă impresia titlul și subiectul; de fapt, deși autoarea cunoaște bine perioada și are simțul detaliului istoric, eu n-am reușit nicio clipă să percep romanul ăsta altfel decât ca pe o poveste de dragoste clasică între băiatul sărac și fata bogată și despre consecințele alegerii dragostei în fața luxului. She took the easiest way out, a băgat personajul principal în înalta nomenclatură. Cu sau fără Cortina de Fier la mijloc, teatral coborâtă, povestea ar fi fost absolut la fel. Comercială, plăcută, citibilă, greu de lăsat din mână. Să zicem doar că, din păcate, nu este suficient de mare pentru titlul ei.

[Afterwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating detail on life behind the Iron Curtain. The heroine is both smart and naive, purely through lack of experience. But at times I felt disengaged from the story. Intellectually satisfied but emotionally not so much.

[Jennyh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love story?
A contrast between cultures>
Freedom or surveillance?
This beautifully constructed story centres around Milena, living a luxurious lifestyle in a soviet satellite state in the 1980's, and Jason, a prize winning published poet visiting from Britain.
As their cultures and ideals collide, the reader is exposed to the political and cultural history of the time, although their story is always at the forefront.
This is a compelling read which opened my eyes to the issues of the time.

[Lady Fancifull · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much more than a love story

This is terrific, and highly recommended. Goldsworthy hangs an account of the relationship between East and West, a kind of mutual suspicion and mutual fascination and misunderstanding, which has been fostered between capitalist and communist countries. Rampant individualism (West) and rampant collectivism/State Control (East) contain each other as shadows.

Set in an unnamed ‘Soviet Satellite State’, in the early 80’s Milina, privileged daughter of a high ranking hero of the Communist Party, is already a rebellious, protected young woman, part of a nihilistic, individualist group of other young people, who can escape some of the punishments which would be due to them for their rebellion, because of their privilege. She models her style as ‘The Juliette Greco of the Steppes’ The same situation, of course, exists in the West. Power and wealth mean one law for the rich, another for the poor.

A tragedy rather changes Milena’s expectations, and her status trajectory is likely to be a little lower than she might otherwise expect. She does, however, due to her knowledge of English, get assigned as a translator on a cultural project, where a romantic left leaning, louche poet from England (from a privileged background) is invited as a guest, for a showcase series of lectures. Jason Collins, layabout, handsome poet, happily an eternal student on a grant, so that he never actually needs to work, but is subsidised by state and family, won a minor poetry prize, and because of this youthful/trendy bandwagon vaguely revolutionary spoutings – though talk rather than walk – is a bit of a hit in the Russian cultural event.

He is also smitten by Milena. As she, eventually, realises Cupid struck home for her too.

No spoilers, as we are given information, right at the start of the book, which begins in 1990, the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the relationship between Jason and Milena did not have any kind of lasting happy ending.

This is a story not just of love’s betrayal and disillusionment, but also of political and ideological disillusionment – from both sides of the Iron Curtain, and also from those who had a sense that ‘before the revolution’ to be a revolutionary was to have some kind of integrity, which totalitarianism of the left, betrayed. However: the collapse of Communism, the embracing of consumerist individualism, as seen in late stage capitalism, is not such an embraceable ideal.either.

Goldsworthy had me hooked here, first page to last. Thoroughly recommended

Thank you to Net Galley, the publisher – and, of course, the author. This was an absolutely absorbing read

[Olesya Gilmore]

Check out my review of this fascinating novel with the Washington Independent here!

https://www.washingtonindependentrevi...

[Ruza Minić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Иако сам учила Руски језик у школи, нисам знала да је Милена изворно руско име.
Још сам под утиском прочитане књиге! "Црвена принцеза" није волела начин живота који је водила у својој породици, родитељској кући...а, онда је по свом избору, све то напустила и отишла у Енглеску, тачније Лондон заљубљена у "несигурног, непозуданог, незапосленог "уметника, песника" Џејсона (али то ће, на жалост, касно открити). И онда видела како се тамо живи. Највећи контраст ми је био између Џејсонове породичне куће и понашања његових родитеља и Миленине куће и њених родитеља! Читам текст и замишљам и једно и друго...као две крајње екстремне верзије, што и јесу!
Из оне сеоске беде његова мајка долази у Лондон, као чјаница неких клубова, посећује неке уметничке Галерије...потпуни несклад са њеним свакодневним животом.
Искрена препорука за читање ове одличне књиге!
Лепо је она написала у једној реченици, како се ван "Гвоздене завесе живи слободно". Ах, какве смо будале били!

[Ivana Filipov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gvozdena zavesa - ljubavna priča, nije samo ljubavna priča, već nas vodi i kroz dva sveta, dva mentaliteta sa obe strane zavese.
Opuštena, interesantna, sa temama koje ostaju da se o njima promišlja i nakon završetka čitanja - šta je sloboda, šta je ljubav, odnos roditelja i dece...

[Lolly K Dandeneau · Rating 4 out of 5]

via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/
𝑴𝒚 𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓, 𝒎𝒚 𝒐𝒏𝒆-𝒂𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒐𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅, 𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝒅𝒊𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒊𝒔, 𝒖𝒏𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒖𝒍𝒇 𝒃𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒐, 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒋𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒐 𝒖𝒏𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒚 𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒚.

It is the 1980s, Milena Urbanska, “a red princess living in a Soviet satellite state”, lives in luxury and freedom but always under watchful eyes. She and her friends can only rebel so far, there is nothing her powerful father isn’t aware or in control of. He knows what she gets up to better than she does, especially antics at the Youth Palace. She and Misha are the golden couple, until fate spins a cruel, stupid tragedy. The fallout changes Milena, after she graduates, she becomes a translator. Her mother isn’t thrilled about her learning English, but it is how she meets Jason Connor, a handsome, Irish twenty-seven-year-old Marxist poet. As the only Westerner invited to the international poetry festival, Milena is the best choice to avoid any embarrassments and keep up the socialist facade. Four days of her time, it isn’t much to ask. She isn’t interested in him, even if his stirring reading has other girls swooning, Milena is simply getting through it. Despite her best efforts to remain unmoved by his wooing, she wonders what it would be like to sleep with a Western man, and the two become lovers. His time there is limited, but it doesn’t stop them from falling madly in love.

It would be impulsive to leave with him, and not easily done, though he desperate for her to do just that. She suffers as she watches him leave. She can’t let go of her longing for him, nor remain unaffected by the reminders. It is during her stay at a villa extended later into the season, swimming in the lake that she makes a decision that changes her life. Milena loves Jason, and despite the risks of leaving her country, parents, and privileged life, she knows he will be worth it. She lies to her parents, but in London with Jason she ‘could lead a more truthful life’. The moment she steps off the plane, nothing is as she envisioned. Meeting his parents and staying at their primitive farmhouse is the first dent in the fantasy of lover’s bliss. In the English house she is stunned at the gothic setting, witness to chores that she had never in her life done. The difference in their upbringing is evident in his parents disinterest in her, so unlike her own parents hungry questions for suitors. His family raises thoughts about Western notions of Eastern poverty. Certainly, this isn’t the wealth of the West you hear so much about? In truth, her own people were better cared for, despite Jason’s father’s assumptions to the contrary. When her mother tracks her down, tells her she is making a big mistake, it’s too late. Milena is rooted to her decision, even against his own mother’s warnings that a poet’s pay ‘won’t butter bread’. They move to a dingy, depressing flat, more like a basement. Milena experiences poverty for the first time, but her heart is rich with love, just as a poet would write it. She is finally free, even if her father’s comrade makes his presence known, proving her father’s reach is beyond borders. Milena and Jason have a ‘pauper poet’s’ wedding, despite their financial troubles, she knows he has his own special genius. Milena feels alienation each day in England, rejections for work pile up, Jason seems to be in no hurry to earn money and his grant is running thin. She finds work, and before long she is with child. Just what will become of their bohemian love nest, when she really gets know the poet she married? Is the world they created together worth everything she sacrificed? They really are opposites, in country and in their souls. Interpreting love is much harder than interpreting written language, just as his ‘year of miracles’ arrives, Milena feels lonely, and is beginning to confront the truths about their marriage and herself that she has been ignoring.

This is a novel about the cultural differences between the East and West but it is also about love, it’s youthful fantasies and hard realities. The lure of poetry, desire, seduction and the cold slap of obligation orbit Milena’s decisions. How much face can a ‘privileged princess’ stand to lose before she turns to her roots for salvation? This isn’t your usual love story, not with the Iron Curtain, Cold War, and divided loyalties at stake. Betrayal, infidelity, passion, love, death… what could go wrong?

The culture shock is genuine, the beliefs they have about each other based on their nationality drives much of the story. It’s interesting how we truly are molded by our country, even in the small ways we never contemplate, little behaviors that only an outsider can spot. I loved the ending, it’s perfectly fitting. Yes, read it.

Publication Date: February 14, 2023

W.W. Norton & Company

[Ferencz Andreea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aplauze pentru romanul Vesnei. Desi e un roman de dragoste , modul în care spune povestea, locurile alese transformă romanul cu totul. Fascinant limbajul folosit, care uneori te face să tragi dex-ul mai aproape de tine. Prezentarea celor două lumi în oglindă, atît de contrariate incită la multe semne de întrebare. Categoric un roman altfel!!!

Autoarea a cinci cărți, traduse în mai multe țări și recompensate cu premii literare, Vesna Goldsworthy, se afirmă în literatură în anul 1998. Volumele sale s-au bucurat de un succes răsunător atât în rânducl criticilor, cât și a cititorilor. În prezent autoarea predă literatură și scriere creativă la University of Exeter și la University of East Anglia.
Romanul Cortina de Fier este mai mult decât un roman de dragoste, un roman complex despre ideologie, mod de viață, trăiri și sentimente, despre puterea a două țări despărțite de cortina de fier. Vesna Goldsworthy prezintă un moment în care Europa ar fi reprezentat singurul stat ce avea apanajul libertății, al bunăstării și singurul care avea puterea de a oferi șansa la fericire. Estul nu e decât cenuțiul absolut, înapoierea, manipularea, constrângerile sau privilegiile celor din aparatul de stat, diferențele dintre clasele sociale. Cele două lumi se oglindesc, se confruntă, își întâlnesc iluziile și deziluziile. Fiecare parte își are reprezentantul: vestul îl prezintă pe Jason, un poet britanic la începutul carierei, iar de partea cealaltă, într-o țară comunistă nenumită se află Milena Urbanska, fiica celui de-al doilea om în stat.
Acest poet britanic aterizează direct în „frigul” din Est și mai ales în viața Milenei, cea care înainte de toate era „Fiica Tatălui” și implictit fiica statului, a regimului politic aflat la putere. Modul de viață al Milenei este incitant și controversat și înainte de a-l cunoaște pe Jason, numele ei deschide orice ușă și trece orice barieră indiferent de tață. Însă atunci când se îndrăgostește alege să renunțe la tot,privilagii, familie, confort. Pleacă în Vest cu anumite viziuni și speranțe ce vor fi imediat spulberate de realitatea mai mult decât anostă. Cu toate acestea Milena este puternică, se adaptează, înfruntă sărăcia și învață să trăiască cu ea, totul pentru iubire, pentru barbatul de care se îndrăgostește. Același bărbat care îi oferă o lovitură dură, care o face să întoară spatele Europei și să revină în țara ei. Jason este exact opusul Milenei, barbat simplu, de la țară, care trăiește numai din ajutoarele statului, fără locuință iar întreaga viața și-o dedică poeziei.
„Eram supărată pe Jason, cu adevărat supărată pentru prima dată de când sosisem în Anglia, inflamată de indiferența lui crescândă față de aspectele practice ale existenței noastre și de disponibilitatea de a depinde de subvenții de la părinții mei, din țara mea obscură, săracă. ”
Cortina de Fier este un roman despre trădare: pe de o parte se află trădarea de țară, trădarea Tatălui, a ideologiei, iar de cealaltă parte e trădarea iubirii, care aduce o dată cu ea o suferință nemărginită pentru Milena, ce o transformă dintr-o tânără, într-o femeie și mamă într-o lume în care iubirea poate deveni monedă de schimb. Este fascinant modul în care Vesna Godsworthy reușește să relateze perspectivele personajelor antagonice, făcând să cadă cortina de fier a convingerilor idealiste despre ceea ce înseamnă să trăiești în Est sau în Vest; evită clișeele și nuanțează cu măiestrie acest roman. De la limbaj, ritm, la acțiune, poveste, tot ceea ce se constituie în Cortina de Fier este fabulos!

[Kathleen]

See the New Yorker article, March 6, 2023, "Writer's Bloc: What a Serbian British novelist makes of her homelands" by Thomas Mallon. Link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

(Also, mentioned in the article is the book, The Balkan Trilogy (I own; recommended by Kennedy Fraser) "Goldsworthy’s first book, “Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination” (1998), was a scholarly, readable history of how successive generations of British writers documented and distorted life in the Balkans, from Byron—who made the southern Balkans the exoticized, alien setting of some of the second canto of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”—to Evelyn Waugh and Olivia Manning, whose Balkan Trilogy depicts “a world clearly burning at the edges, with her English characters fleeing the flame.” Goldsworthy reserves her highest literary admiration for Rebecca West’s “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon” (1941), whose sense of the Balkan countries’ essential “Europeanness” has become a consistent theme of Goldsworthy’s own work. More often, British writers have appeared to make the region into a comic-operatic or deeply sinister place, the land of “The Prisoner of Zenda” and “Dracula,” terrain in which passengers on the Orient Express should expect murder."

A bit about Iron Curtain:

...The emotions of this well-conjured novel are raw, its observations acute. Goldsworthy is so intent on getting where she wants to go that, from the book’s earliest pages, she repeatedly—and artfully—telegraphs its bitter ending, thereby freeing a reviewer from the need to issue any spoiler alerts. (The first epigraph comes from “Medea”: “Stronger than lover’s love is lover’s hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.”)

The book’s prologue is set in December, 1990. Milena Urbanska watches the husband she’s left make a puffed-up speech on TV accepting a poetry prize in the reunified Germany, heralding the “end of history.” Milena, forceful and self-centered, is the privileged daughter of the Vice-President of an unnamed and staunchly oppressive Eastern Bloc country. The book’s main action, splendidly paced, begins nine years earlier, in 1981, when Milena’s equally élite boyfriend, Misha, kills himself in a game of Russian roulette. A coverup of the circumstances doesn’t completely extinguish sex-and-drugs-and-conspiracy rumors about the participation of Misha’s friends, so Milena keeps her head down, taking a dull job translating maize-production reports. But she tempts fate by agreeing to attend a literary festival to translate for Jason Connor, a young Anglo-Irish poet.

Jason is attractive and carefree, even silly. Milena knows that his appeal derives “not merely from his easy charm but from his rarity value” in her non-cosmopolitan world. Still, she falls for him...