A Russian Writer Adjusts to America

Russian Writer Adjusts to America

Since early youth Alla Crone wrote and published poetry in Russian but when she came to the U.S. she wanted to write a book in English.

By Alla Crone

My parents fled from the Bolsheviks across Siberia in 1920 and settled in Harbin, Manchuria. Although the town is located in China, it was built by the Russians during the work on the Trans Siberian Railroad. I was born there and raised in an entirely Russian community and culture studying in a Russian school and taking piano lessons since early childhood. When the Japanese occupied that area during WWII, we moved to Shanghai and spent the years under the Japanese occupation suffering various hardships and food shortages. After the war I married an American physician and came to the U.S. The adjustment to American ways of life took time, especially since my mother-in-law never passed a chance to criticize me and my European manners. My husband however, was understanding and kind. He was a cultured gentleman who encouraged me to study at the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco where I spent four years.

Since early youth I wrote and published poetry in Russian but when I came to the U.S. I wanted to write a book based on my mother's flight across Siberia. My first book, East Lies the Sun was published in New York by DELL Publishers as were the next three historical novels. After the fourth book, my husband became ill and I was widowed several years later. I then began my fifth novel Rodina that covers 20 years between 1937 and 1957 and deals with my heroine's problem of whether to follow her communist lover to the Soviet Union or go to the United States. Much of the detail described in the book is what I had to go through, such as living conditions in Shanghai, and the adjustment to a new culture and life in the U.S. Having been born stateless, I especially appreciate being a citizen of a country that is democratic and a land of plenty, and this feeling is reflected in my heroine's life. The love stories in my books are fiction, but the historical background is true. After a short widowhood, I remarried and am the wife of a retired college president who is now Artistic Director of Chamber Music Series. We live in Sonoma County north of San Francisco and I count my blessings every day.

My first two books, East Lies the Sun and Winds over Manchuria , include a lot of history that was not known worldwide, such as the fleeing refugees' crossing of Lake Baikal on foot in February of 1920, and the tragic death of their leader, General Kappel who, on leaving Krasnoyarsk fell through the ice on the River Kan and died soon after. There follows life in Harbin, kidnaping by the Chinese bandits, "hunhuzi' as they were called, and a satisfying resolution to the story.

In Winds over Manchuria the time span is wider, beginning with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II and ending after WWII. My heroine in this book is a socialist who moves with her brother from St.Petersburg to Vladivostok and then to Harbin, and lives there through the Japanese occupation during WWII. All four novels eventually went out of print and the first two, East Lies the Sun and Winds over Manchuria as well as Rodina are back in print from iUniverse, I am in the process of having the remaining two re-issued. One is North of the Moon and deals with the Decembrists' movement in 1825, and the other, Legacy of Ambe deals with the Chinese bandits in Manchuria and the daily life of the Russians in Harbin.

To buy a book clisk on it's name: East Lies the Sun Legacy of Amber North of the Moon Winds over Manchuria Rodina