The Delegation - Paperback

by Avner Landes (Author)

Moscow, 1943. The Soviet Army has defeated the Nazis at Stalingrad, but continuing to defend the Motherland will require arms, money, and allies around the world. To rally support, Joseph Stalin dispatches a delegation of two Jewish artists, the world-renowned actor (and self-appointed Head Jew of the Soviet Union) Solomon Mikhoels and his Party handler, the middling poet Lieutenant Colonel Itzik Feffer.

From the pyramids of Egypt to the Polo Grounds of New York City, the garrulous Mikhoels entertains crowds with bold and problematic pronouncements, while Feffer reflects on the dimming of his revolutionary spirit and wonders when and how he turned into a timid middle-aged functionary who now spends his days obsessing over the state of his intestinal tract.

In pursuit of their noble cause, Mikhoels and Feffer meet a wealthy lawyer turned artist and his idiot cousin, entreat a tongueless heiress, compare notes with an oversexed Albert Einstein, and share the stage with the great Paul Robeson.

Less than ten years later, they would both be murdered.

Truth and fiction eye each other warily in this true story as told by a fictional author struggling to pen an epic work of historical fiction.