The Little Communist Who Never Smiled

· Serpent's Tail
Ebook
174
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

The Montreal Olympics, 1976. A fourteen-year-old girl steps out onto the floor of the Montreal Forum and into history.

Twenty seconds on the uneven bars is it all it takes for Nadia Comaneci, the slight, unsmiling child from Communist Romania, to etch herself into the collective memory. The judges award her an unprecedented perfect ten, the first in Olympic gymnastics.

In The Little Communist Who Never Smiled, Lola Lafon weaves an intricate web of truth and fiction around Comaneci's life, from her discovery by legendary gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi up to her defection to the United States in 1989.

Adored by young girls in the West and appropriated as a political emblem by the Ceausescu regime, Comaneci was a fearless, fiercely determined child whose body would become a battleground in the Cold War story of East against West. Lafon's novel is a powerful re-imagining of a childhood in the spotlight of history, politics and destiny.
The Montreal Olympics, 1976. A fourteen-year-old girl steps out onto the floor of the Montreal Forum and into history. Twenty seconds on the uneven bars is it all it takes for Nadia Comaneci, the slight, unsmiling child from Communist Romania, to etch herself into the collective memory. The judg...

Discover more

About the author

Lola Lafon is a writer and musician. Born in France, Lafon grew up in Sofia and Bucharest, and now lives in Paris. The Little Communist Who Never Smiled is Lafon's fourth novel; it has been translated into eleven languages and won ten literary prizes in France, including the Prix Ouest-France Etonnants Voyageurs, the Prix Jules Rimet and the Prix Version Femina.
Lola Lafon is a writer and musician. Born in France, Lafon grew up in Sofia and Bucharest, and now lives in Paris. The Little Communist Who Never Smiled is Lafon's fourth novel; it has been translated into eleven languages and won ten literary prizes in France, including the Prix Ouest-France Eto...

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.