Kids and Cubs by Olga Vasilievna Perovskaya - 1981

Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981. Third printing. Hardcover. Good/fair. Translated from the Russian by Fainna Glagoleva. Olga Vasilievna Perovskaya (1902ñ1961), born in the village of Melitopol, was a Soviet children's literature writer. Her most notable work Rebyata i Zveryata (Kids and Cubs) which was published in 1925. The book can be called autobiographical, in terms of its main characters which are thinly veiled portrayals of herself and her sisters. It is a series of stories of about the various pets she and her sisters (Sonya, Yulia and Natasha) kept during their childhood. She was arrested on 15 March 1943 and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in labour camps during the Great Purge. Her sentence was later modified to one of exile. During 1940-50's, her books were not published. She was rehabilitated toward the end of the fifties. Rebyata i Zveryata has been translated into a number of languages including English, Malayalam and Tamil. In English it has been published under two different titles "Kids and Cubs" and "The Wolf in Olga's Kitchen". The years of exile left their mark on the life of the writer, Olga became bedridden with severe disease and died at age 59 in 1961 and was buried in the cemetery in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow. Her other books include "The extraordinary stories about ordinary animal", "Marmotka" (both 1939), "About the pigs" (1941), and novels "Island in the wilderness" (1934, jointly with G. Zamchalovo), "The Golden Fleece" (1957, jointly with G. Zamchalovo), "Jan - eyes of the hero" (1958).

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