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Born in the USSR, Mr.
Gurevich is a writer, translator, and a film critic.
His books include a novel, Travels with Dubinsky
and Clive (Viking, 1987), and a Sixties memoir of Russia,
From Lenin to Lennon (Harcourt, Brace, 1991).
His articles and book reviews have appeared
in various publications, both in this country and abroad.
He wrote on the Russian mafia for Details, on Harold Robbins’
literary heritage for The New York Times Book Review, and
on Yevgeny Zamyatin for The New Criterion. Other publications
include Wall Street Journal, The Guardian (London), The Forward,
The Boston Globe, Newsday, and others. He also reviews film
for Images Journal, an online publication.
His translations from Russian include Yeltsin:
A Political Biography by V.Solovyov (Putnam, 92)
Currently Mr. Gurevich also serves as a North
American representative of the Michael Cherney Foundation.
Mr. Gurevich’s involvement with the Dolphinarium
project goes back to the time he was asked to prepare the
English-language version of the book. “Soon, I realized it
was not just another job,” he recalls. “As I went over one
scene after another of mothers coming inside the morgue to
identify their daughters’ bodies, I was becoming obsessed.
Haunted. Not only do I have a son who is only a few years
older than the victims, but all the families in the book came
out of small towns in Russia and Ukraine, just like I did,
and so I felt I connected with these people on a very visceral
level. I realized I had to do something about it. This material
was simply too powerful to remain confined to the printed
page.
The making of Empty Rooms was once-in-a-lifetime
event. Bear in mind that Russian families are small, and many
of the victims were the only children in their respective
families. Some were survived by single mothers, and the depth
of the tragedy that I witnessed cannot be overstated. Interviewing
these people on tape was a cathartic experience. As for the
kids who survived bombing, when you think about what they
went through – and how they came out of this ordeal with their
heads up – I was simply humbled. Our characters have seen
the face of evil and lived to tell the story.
"Unbeknownst to themselves, these
children died on a battlefield. They were unwitting soldiers
who had never been drafted. The war goes on. Every day brings
more reports from the front lines. If, after seeing the film,
at least a few people find it impossible to simply leaf through
the newspaper without seeing these children’s faces in their
minds – I’ll feel that we have succeeded."
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