Description
Linda Kinstler is one of the most exciting young historians working today. Her writing has been praised by Peter Pomerantsev, Anne Applebaum and Oliver Bullough amongst others. It is a real pleasure to welcome her here to talk about her first book Come To This Court and Cry, whose subject matters of misinformation, history’s gatekeepers and memory make it acutely relevant reading today.
Linda was advised not to go searching for her paternal grandfather’s remains – he had been all but erased from her Latvian family’s narrative, all she knew was that he had disappeared after WWII. The book centres around Linda’s discovery that the silence surrounding him was for good reason. Boris Kinstler was a member of the SS who then became a KGB agent. As she continued to investigate his life, his name surfaced in evidence files relating to an ongoing criminal investigation disturbingly involving the ‘Butcher of Riga’ Herbert Cukers.
This debut is so much more than the unearthing of this gripping story – weaving the personal with the philosophical, Kinstler has written an exceptional reflection on how we hold the truth when the witnesses of history are no longer here.
Author and columnist Dorian Lynskey will be joining Linda in conversation. Dorian Lynskey has been writing about music, politics, film and books for over 20 years and is the author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs and The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984.