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TRANSLATION OF FAMILY LETTERS FROM RUSSIA LEADS TO NOVEL
San Francisco Resident Bases New Book on Ancestors Living on Lower Volga River
Salinas, CA (Summer 2003)—Tony Haas was struggling to find himself when he found, filed haphazardly among business papers, his father's and Aunt Amelia's translations of family letters from Russia. It wasn't his first reading of the letters. He searched them for help. He saw faces, personalities — a previously unknown family — in and behind the words. He didn't know these people, but he sensed that they wanted him to know them. He read on. His hands rested patiently and respectfully on the original letters from his Great Aunt Helena. Her soul touched his and the spark of inspiration was ignited.
Dated between 1902 and 1934, the correspondence tells a dramatic and compelling story of love, war, poverty, starvation, separation, and courage. Haas used these historical documents to create fictional characters set against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary and Stalinist Russia and the budding western Kansas town of Ellis.
"Solotoye Russia: Meadowlark Songs and Forgotten Wrongs," a novel published December 2008 through Arcus Books, tells the story of an independent, strong, and lively Emma Wasen as she tries to cope with her male dominated and provincial life in the small village of Solotoye. Influenced by an old photograph of The Crusaders for Law and Order in Ellis, Kansas, Emma is convinced that her family must leave Russia and go to this village in Kansas where women make the rules.
Haas sensed guiding hands at work as he wrote his novel — Aunt Helena and his father. Ideas for the storyline, phrases and words came to him unexpectedly. He accepted an unspoken responsibility to "scatter the papers" of his German-Russian family.
"Solotoye is an unusual book written in a crisp and poetic style," says Dr. Timothy J. Kloberdanz, a German-Russian scholar and author. "Tony Haas paints a haunting and unforgettable portrait of a Volga German village that is no more."
Though he never had any intention of writing a historical novel, Haas says that while writing "Solotoye," he found himself. And he discovered a passion for writing. His second novel, an adventure story that addresses personal and world transformation, is under way.
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Tony Haas is a first-time novelist who lives in San Francisco, CA, with his wife Janet. He is available for comment at tonyhaas@msn.com. For more information about the book, author, and a high-resolution file of the cover, visit http://www.solotoye.com/.
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