Russian Booker prize winning novel released in English

Three years ago, when Elena Chizhova's novel The Time of Women won the Russian Booker prize, the critics were surprised. Some said the book was just too plain, too emotional and too readable to be a Booker prize winner, in other words it wasn't highbrow enough. But the novel did hit a nerve with Russian readers especially women, because for them it was their story. Set in St Petersburg in the early 1960s, it's about a young factory worker and her illegitimate, mute daughter Sofia who share an apartment with three elderly babushkas. Through this domestic business of onion-frying, laundry and petty squabbles, Elena Chizhova tells the story of 20th century Russia. And it's a story which still resonates today because the book has just been released in English for the first time by Russian publisher Glagoslav.