- The Observer, Sunday 15 June 2008
A Country in the Moon: Travels in Search of the Heart of Poland
by Michael Moran
Granta £20, pp362
Following the collapse of communism, two strange parallel universes coexisted in the countries of the former Soviet empire, newly dubbed by many the Wild East. The nascent spirit of democratic free enterprise attempted to operate using the personnel, technology and legal system of the dying bloc.
In 1992, Michael Moran and his team of Western business instructors found themselves lodged in an ex-Soviet conference centre on the outskirts of Warsaw where the outline of hammer and sickle could still be seen, so recently had the old logo been taken down. Outside, the vodka drunks carried puppies in their jackets to stop themselves freezing to death, and petrol stations sold booze at the Non-Stop 24-Hour Alcohole. No one trusted anyone else and anything not nailed down was stolen. 'Come to Poland - your car is already here!' advised a spoof German travel ad.
This memoir of Nineties Poland from an insider who speaks the language is in the tradition of Lawrence Durrell's Bitter Lemons and proves a well-crafted, spirited and original polonaise, triumphantly balancing humour with scholarship.
