The Translator

A novel of tremendous scope and beauty, The Translator tells of the relationship between an exiled Russian poet and his American translator during the Cuban missile crisis, a time when a writer's words -- especially forbidden ones -- could be powerful enough to change the course of history.

Set on the Midwestern prairie, the novel follows student Kit Malone as she encounters Innokenti Falin, an exiled Soviet writer. The narrative traces their quiet collaboration over an old Underwood typewriter, rendering verses that bridge two hostile worlds.

Campus authorities and federal agents soon question Falin’s past as geopolitical tensions escalate. Crowley places their work in the shadow of the missile crisis — a moment when private art could draw dangerous official scrutiny.

• Campus Novel: Set on an expansive prairie university in the early 1960s, where quiet library stacks and academic seminars collide with student demonstrations and federal surveillance.
• Historical Fiction: Evokes the autumn of 1962 from the corridors of the White House to Midwestern fallout shelters, capturing an era gripped by nuclear anxiety.
• Soviet History: Explores the legacy of the gulag and the homeless street orphans of post-revolutionary Russia through the haunting recollections of an exiled poet.
• Also by This Author: Little, Big, Otherwise and Lord Byron's Novel.