The Forsaken Hardback - 2008

Media reviews

'In The Forsaken, Tim Tzouliadis' clear, strong narrative discloses the terrible fates which awaited those committed communists and apolitical innocents alike who wandered into the Soviet sphere. Tzouliadis does not spare us the detailsthis grim, brilliantly told storyreads as from another time.'
The Financial Times

'Heart-wrenching.'
New York Post

'[a] gripping and important bookan extremely impressive bookThe writing is crisp and fluent, and the ordinary lives of these Americans come vividly to life; but at the same time the larger political framework is always present, lucidly outlined.'
Noel Malcolm, Telegraph (UK)

"Tim Tzouliadis's excellent tome, The Forsaken, warrants immediate attentiona remarkable account of the foreigners who worked, suffered and ultimately perished in the USSR. The grim nature of the material does not silence Tzouliadis's wonderfully descriptive voice. After a great amount of research, his is a powerful testament to the wretched unfortunates who unwillingly gave their lives for a country they, in many cases, struggled to speak the language of. An incisive and cogent read, [The Forsaken] is required reading for anyone interested in this intriguing, reprehensible and lamentable era."
Sunday Business Post (UK)

'In this spellbinding book, British writer and film-maker Tim Tzouliadis brings to life an aspect of Stalin's Terror that had been almost completely forgotten – the brutal, systematic extermination of these unlikely economic migrants from Pittsburgh and New York and Wichita, along with millions of other "enemies" of the Soviet state. As almost 100 pages of end notes attest, this is a painstakingly researched story it must have taken the author several years to assemble all the necessary material yet it is told with such panache that it doesn't feel the least bit dry or academic.'
The Living Scotsman (UK)

'It is not often that a new page of history is written.This book is a fine narrative, full of ironic, sometimes black humor; it is thoroughly researched, sympathetic to the victims and merciless to the perpetrators.. [a] fine and important book.'
The Literary Review (UK)

'Tim Tzouliadis, a documentary-maker whose first book this is, tells the dreadful story of what happened to these deceived emigrants with eloquence and indignationhe has organized his narrative with considerable skill, retaining his focus on the plight of these immigrants into the living hell that was the USSRCompared with the enormous tragedy of the Russian people under Communism, this history is no more than a footnote but it is a particularly poignant and revealing one.'
Evening Standard (UK)

'[The Forsaken] turns the spotlight on a page of Soviet history that has been ignored until now.Although familiar with the Gulag literature from Solzhenitsyn onwards, I found some of these pages impossible to read without pain, anger and astonishment.'
Peter Lewis, Daily Mail (UK)

'Tzouliadis's narrativeholds the reader's attention and illuminates an overlooked chapter in 20th-century history, revealing larger trends in relations between Russia and the United States that persist today...an intriguing tale.'
Kirkus Reviews

'Their story is told with great skill and indignation missing from Western accounts of communist Russiaadmirable workThe horror that was Stalinist Russia is still incomprehensible to many Americans, even to many of those who study the USSR professionally. Reading this book is certain to open their eyes.'
Richard Pipes, The New York Sun

'A superb story, and Tzouliadis tells it well. Tzouliadis sets out to establish the existence of a significant group of Americans in the gulag, and in that he succeedshe has painstakingly put together all of the memoirs, all of the recollections and all of the Western records the State Department letters, the diplomatic dispatches that are available, and has used them to tell the tragic story of the least-heralded migration in American history.''
Anne Applebaum, The Spectator (UK)

'This is a powerful, important and highly readable book. The Gulag is no novelty, but Tzouliadis brilliantly links high politics to the torment of innocents, adding devastating detail.'
George Walden, The Observer (UK)