Changes

|title=The Year of Miracle and Grief

|sort=Year of Miracle and Grief, The

|publisher=Quartet

|date=November 2013

|website=

|video=

|summary=A twelve-year-old newcomer to the shores of Lake Baikal explores the notorious Dead Man's Crag and there discovers the secret of the mountain that looks like a ruined castle. A magical tale of hurt and love laced with the remote wonder of Siberia.

}}

From a space of 25 years, our narrator looks back on what happened when he was 12 years old. Twenty five years that had to elapse, because that was the promise that he made. He is now happy, happy to have kept the secret as he promised Sarma he would, and happier that he can now tell the story: he can tell us of everything that happened in his childhood that year on the shores of the oldest lake in the world, Lake Baikal.

It is certainly an elegy for the Siberian heartland, that will leave you wondering precisely where Irkutsk is and whether that train is still running.

A note on the title: I'm not sure how or why Quartet hit on this particular rendition of the title of the work. All other references to it that I've found render the Russian original as ''A Year of Wonder and Sorrow''. Unfortunately, I don't have the Russian to know whether subtleties have been regained or imposed via the Quartet choice. It feels right though.

For more stories from the northern corners we can recommend [[The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson]] or [[Far North by Marcel Theroux]].

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