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Red Plenty by Francis Spufford: What if the Soviet ´miracle´ had worked, and the communists had discovered the secret to prosperity, progress and happiness...?

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The Soviet Union was founded on a fairytale. It was built on 20th-century magic called ´the planned economy´, which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the penny-pinching lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late fifties, the magic seemed to be working.

Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came and went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan, every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche and sputniks would lead the way to the stars. It´s about the scientists who did their best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending.

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Spufford, Francis
Francis Spufford was born in 1964. He is the author of five celebrated books of non-fiction. The most recent, Unapologetic, has been translated into three languages; the one before, Red Plenty, into nine. He has been longlisted or shortlisted for prizes in science writing, historical writing, political writing, theological writing, and writing ´evoking the spirit of place´. His first novel. Golden Hill, was published in 2016 and won the Costa First Novel Award. In 2007 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches creative writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and lives near Cambridge., Francis Spufford, a former Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (1997), is the author of five highly-praised books of non-fiction. The first, I May Be Some Time, won three literary prizes, and helped create a small new academic field, dedicated to the cultural history of Antarctica. The second, The Child That Books Built, gave Neil Gaiman ´the peculiar feeling that there was now a book I didn´t need to write´. Backroom Boys was called ´as nearly perfect as makes no difference´ by the Daily Telegraph; Red Plenty has been translated into nine languages, including Polish, Russian and Estonian; Unapologetic is richer in expletives than any previous work of religious advocacy, and is currently shortlisted for the Michael Ramsey Prize for Theological Writing. He has also been shortlisted or longlisted for prizes in writing about science, history, politics and ´the spirit of place´. He teaches at Goldsmiths College and lives near Cambridge with his wife and younger daughter. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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