★Awards: Shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize 2007! Winner (third prize from jury, second prize from readers) of the Big Book Award 2007!
★Rights sold: Italy, Norway, Vietnam, Poland, Bulgaria, France!
★An engrossing love drama, an engaging argument on the nature of art and a grandiose polyphonic ode to Tashkent, On the Sunny Side of the Street became a markpoint for Dina Rubina’s spectacular literary career, fi rmly positioning her as one of the most widely read writer in Russia today.

　　This is an engrossing story of two strong female characters. There’s Katya, who as a girl escapes from the siege of Leningrad and is evacuated to Tashkent. In the post war city, overcrowded with people from all parts of the country in desperate and greedy need to survive, Katya quickly learns to use her original skill of grasping mere details and a natural talent for mimicry for criminal purpose: a swindler in local markets at first, she grows into a ruthless head of cannabis smuggling net. Her daughter Vera inherits her mother’s sharp eye and an ingenious talent, but chooses differently, becoming a true artist with a bright international career. Both mother’s and daughter’s ways to professional recognition are nothing less but trying, filled with tragic mistakes, unendurable loss(es) and one true love.

　　The entwining life stories of the novel’s two heroines are drawn against a gaudy background of an Oriental city, Tashkent, with its sun-soaked bazaars, crowded yards and a picturesque and engaging cast of characters representing different cultural, ethnical and social backgrounds. This lavishness of the story is masterly reflected in the novel’s complex structure. The drama of a bitter mother and daughter confrontation is intersected with numerous first-person narratives from Tashkent’s former residents as they remember the city of their childhood and youth, as well as the author’s own colorful childhood memories.

　　In this novel Rubina succeeds with brilliance in mastering writing skills that make her literary trademarks: the author’s juicy Babelesque language; a gripping narrative’s plot; a tender humor, grit and passion in a unanimous accord; a vivid, real-life details and characters.

Dina Rubina

　　Dina Rubina is an Israeli Russian-language writer. Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1953, Dina
Rubina had her first stories published in 1970s in Yunost (Youth) magazine. She has received numerous awards, and is the bestselling author of over 40 titles, including eight novels. Dina Rubina’s novels and novellas have been made into films, adapted for TV, and staged in theaters in Russia and Israel. Dina Rubina is the Big Book Award winner (2007) for the novel On the Sunny Side of the Street and the Russian Prize finalist for the novel the White Dove of Cordoba. the total print run of the novel the White Dove of Cordoba is 180,000 copies to date. Each new title by Dina Rubina is published in a first edition of 80,000 copies. Since 1990 Dina Rubina has lived in Ma’ale-Adumim, Israel with her family, artist Boris Karafelov, her daughter, and grandchildren.