Should I or Shouldn't I?
Published by Diogenes as Sag ich's oder sag ich's nicht?
Original Title: Skazat' - ne skazat'
›Shall I say it or not?‹ is the fraught question which accompanies the life of a young woman like a leitmotif. Now a mature woman, she looks back on the many opportunities she lost through her indecision - and when a last opportunity arises she finally takes the plunge. ›I am, you are, he is‹ is the story of an unmarried mother whose whole life revolves around her son. One day, he brings a girl home. His mother does not take to the young woman and waits impatiently for the visitor to leave. Then her son tells her that she is here to stay - if she leaves, he will leave too since he married her a few days previously... ›Kirka and the officer‹ would, in the normal course of events, hardly have got to know each other since Kirka the painter would have been unlikely to have anything to do with such an ideologically minded old fossil who still believes in the uprightness of the communist party. But a postcard that went to the wrong address brings about a collision between two people with diametrically opposed philosophies.
Contemporary Literature
304 pages
1993

978-3-257-01960-5
Viktorija
Tokarjewa

Viktorija Tokarjewa, born in St. Petersburg in 1937, worked as a music teacher before studying scriptwriting at the Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. 15 films have been made from her scripts. She published her first story in 1964 and since then has devoted herself entirely to writing. Today she is one of Russia’s most popular and bestselling authors. She now lives near Moscow.

Photo: © Isolde Ohlbaum

Movie adaptations

1999
Schwiegermutter, Dagmar Hirtz