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THE HAY MAN
THE HAY MAN
BY
A. J DUTTON
This work of fiction is set in the Ukraine province of the USSR and begins in March 1938 when Mikhail Joura, a farmer, is arrested and taken away on the charge of stealing a bale of hay. As to what became of him, his young family would never discover, whilst with the passing of time, people who might have been able to help would themselves pass away and such records that might have existed were allowed to disappear. And so, as with any evidence, Mikhail Joura simply vanished never to be heard of again – not even as a named statistic.
Although this is a story of the imagination, thus far what has been told is true. However the author was married to the grand daughter of Mikhail Joura, and he would like to think that something better than unexplained invisibility and oblivion was his fate – that just a few pages about him, even it not entirely true, can be a little comfort and pleasure for the family who followed, and still bear his name.
In terms of time and place, this was of course the era of Joseph Stalin, and as history tells us, it was a reign of appalling misery, during which men, women and children were starved, tortured and murdered - usually for no more than the allegation of (say) stealing a bale of hay. It was indeed a period without credit or glory for the tyrant and humanity in general.
In his wonderful account, A. J Dutton follows Mikhail Joura on a journey which will see him incarcerated in one of the many infamous Gulags, but then to find him swept up and carried along on by wave of circumstances until reaching a destination far beyond the expectations and dreams of any man, but most surely deserving of a place in the records of social history.
THE HAY MAN WILL BE PUBLISHED IN AUTUMN 2008
For Neaptide Projects (Salcombe) Limited & The Penzance Club Limited
All Rights Reserved 2008
Copyright: Neaptide Projects (Salcombe) Limited
All rights reserved 2008
Neaptide Projects Ltd., The Studio, Drake Road, Salcombe, Devon, TQ8 8EG, United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)1548 843329
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