Mr Frankenstein Richard Freeborn

Mr Frankenstein by Richard Freeborn

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Set in London, the south coast of England and in Los Angeles, Mr Frankenstein is a powerfully written story of how the wealth and politics of the twenty-first century can be shackled to the ideologies of the twentieth. At its source is incontestable historical fact.

Mr Frankenstein by Richard Freeborn

At its heart is the sinister warning Mary Shelley issued in the Introduction to her own Frankenstein: 'Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.' Who was Joe Richter? Anglo-Russian, intelligent, recently sacked as a translator and lobbyist, assaulted and branded because he had translated an unusually sensitive historical document. For adherents of a violent neo-Soviet cult he was a cheat and so much bourgeois filth. For a wealthy American businessman it could mean big money. For a Russian oligarch it could mean enormous political power. For his mother it could mean happiness. For his girlfriend it could mean serious danger. For Joe himself it meant that he had to be a new Frankenstein. Has he really been gifted with the power to be a Frankenstein, to create new life? Does his DNA or bloodline relate him to a recently deceased relative who was supposed to have such powers? Aided by the CIA, he flies to California to perform an act of revitalization, only to find that what this could mean for world politics also has a deeply troubling personal meaning for Joe himself.

Richard Freeborn was posted by the Foreign Office to the British embassy in Moscow, where he joined what was called the Secretariat. He became an Oxford don and was later appointed chair of Russian Literature at London University. He has interpreted for many major figures, including prime ministers and members of the Supreme Soviet, and travelled widely in the Soviet Union in the immediate post-Stalin period, although in later decades he found he was persona non grata and not granted visas. Richard married his wife Anne, an embassy colleague while in Moscow. He has written studies devoted to modern Russian history, the rise of the Russian novel and what he has called the Russian revolutionary novel. At the heart of his academic interest has been Ivan Turgenev, whose major literary works he has both translated and written about extensively. His translation of Turgenev's play A Month in the Country starred Helen Mirren and John Hurt et al. when it was produced in London and enjoyed great success. Dame Helen then took it to Broadway, where it enjoyed further success. She and John Hurt have left him a very touching, congratulatory memento relating to his translation and their roles in the play.

Mr Frankenstein Richard Freeborn

Mr Frankenstein by Richard Freeborn

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Mr Frankenstein Summary

Mr Frankenstein by Richard Freeborn

About Richard Freeborn

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