Join us

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Newsletter

Alina Bronsky

My Grandmother's Braid

Cover: My Grandmother's Braid - Alina Bronsky

Alina Bronsky

My Grandmother's Braid

2021, pp. 176, Paperback
ISBN: 9781787702745
Translated by: Tim Mohr
Region: Russia
Available as ebook Available as ebook Available as ebook
£ 12.99

The book

Sharp and tender at once, a humourous take on family dysfunction and human weakness seen through a young boy’s eyes.

Max lives with his grandparents in a residential home for refugees in Germany. When his grandmother—a terrifying, stubborn matriarch and a former Russian primadonna—moved them from the Motherland it was in search of a better life. But she is not at all pleased with how things are run in Germany.
His grandmother has been telling Max that he is an incompetent, clueless weakling since he was a child. While he may be dolt in his grandmother's eyes, Max is bright enough to notice that his stoic and taciturn grandfather has fallen hopelessly in love with their neighbour, Nina. When a child is born to Nina that is the spitting image of Max’s grandfather, things come to a hilarious if dramatic head. Everybody will have to learn to defend themselves from Max’s all-powerful grandmother.

The author

Alina Bronsky
Alina Bronsky is the author of Broken Glass Park, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, named a Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, Just Call Me Superhero and Baba Dunja's Last Love. Born in Yekaterinburg, an industrial town at the foot of the Ural Mountains in central Russia, Bronsky relocated with her family to Berlin when she was thirteen. Author's Web site (in German)

Reviews

Books by region

  • Cover: Displaced. Civilians in the Russia-Ukraine War - Valery Panyushkin

    Valery Panyushkin

    Displaced. Civilians in the Russia-Ukraine War

    2025, pp. 240, £ 9.99
    A Russian journalist’s first-hand account of the heartbreak and resilience of ordinary Ukrainians faced with Putin’s aggression.
  • Cover: Displaced. Civilians in the Russia-Ukraine War - Valery Panyushkin

    Valery Panyushkin

    Displaced. Civilians in the Russia-Ukraine War

    2024, pp. , £ 14.99
    A Russian journalist’s first-hand account of the heartbreak and resilience of ordinary Ukrainians faced with Putin’s aggression.
  • Cover: Not Russian - Mikhail Shevelev

    Mikhail Shevelev

    Not Russian

    2023, pp. 160, £ 14.99
    A gripping, illuminating novel about recent Russian aggressions and the humans caught in the crossfire
  • Cover: 12 Who Don't Agree. The Battle for Freedom in Putin's Russia - Valery Panyushkin

    Valery Panyushkin

    12 Who Don't Agree.
    The Battle for Freedom in Putin's Russia

    2022, pp. 272, £ 8.99
    Here is another Russia. Twelve brave men and women pitted against the Putin regime.
  • Cover: Red Crosses - Sasha Filipenko

    Sasha Filipenko

    Red Crosses

    2021, pp. 208, £ 12.99
    A heart wrenching story exploring memory and Russian history - from Stalin's terror to the present day.

More suggestions

  • Cover: Fathers and Fugitives - S J Naudé

    S J Naudé

    Fathers and Fugitives

    2025, pp. 192, £ 9.99
    An inventive and emotionally charged novel about fatherhood and family, loyalty and betrayal, inheritance and belonging.
  • Cover: The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen - Shokoofeh Azar

    Shokoofeh Azar

    The Gowkaran Tree in the Middle of Our Kitchen

    2025, pp. 400, £ 16.99
    From International Booker Prize finalist Shokoofeh Azar, a stylistically audacious and emotionally powerful novel about one large, complicated family...
  • Cover: All That Remains - Virginie Grimaldi

    Virginie Grimaldi

    All That Remains

    2025, pp. 284, £ 10.99
    A funny and moving story of unlikely friendship from the internationally bestselling author of A Good Life
  • Cover: Shibboleth - Thomas Peermohamed Lambert

    Thomas Peermohamed Lambert

    Shibboleth

    2025, pp. 384, £ 14.99
    A darkly comic tale that brings the satirical English campus novel into the divided, multicultural, hyperactive present day.
  • Cover: City of Fiction - Yu Hua

    Yu Hua

    City of Fiction

    2025, pp. 352, £ 14.99
    A story of love, blood and dreams, set in early 20th century China
  • Cover: The Brittle Age - Donatella Di Pietrantonio

    Donatella Di Pietrantonio

    The Brittle Age

    2025, pp. 192, £ 14.99
    A powerful mother-and-daughter story, a profound exploration of human fragility, and of the haunting shadows of the past