Shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize 2020
Inspired by the artful prose of Primo Levi, Raynor Winn and Deborah Levy, Black Tea is a book about Russia that starts in London at the height of the Cold War and ends on a beach in Crimea forty years later.
Morris combines elements of his life forged during the breakup of the Soviet Union to create a memoir based on reflections and memory, and a narration that starts in England leads the reader on a journey through Russia from the White Sea to the Caucasus.
The book comes to terms with the central lacuna in twentieth-century thought: the tacit support for communism by Western intellectuals. It describes the author's father's support of Russia and his activism on behalf of nuclear disarmament in the 1970s, and contrasts this with his grandmother's stark warnings of the evils of socialism, and his own ambiguous position growing up in the suburbs outside London, a position that was for many years dominated, in spirit, by a huge military map of the Soviet Union tacked to his bedroom wall.
"If the history of a country can be traced in a single life, then a history of Russia can be traced all the way back to suburban England. This is the path that runs through me, and for this reason it has not been possible to start anywhere else."
Highly informed with a unique perspective, Black Tea chronicles the changing face of Russia.
Highly informed with a unique perspective, Black Tea chronicles the changing geography, politics and personality of Russia over his thirty years there. A reflection and a travelogue, Steve Morris hauntingly explores love and identity, commitment and family.
