For all the West’s failings – terrible food, cold weather, and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few – it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn’t until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant society, receiving countless opportunities he would never have had otherwise.
Funny, provocative and unswervingly perceptive, An Immigrant’s Love letter to the West interrogates the developing sense of self-loathing the Western sphere has adopted and offers an alternative perspective. Exploring race politics, free speech, immigration and more, Kisin argues that wrongdoing and guilt need not pervade how we feel about the West – and Britain – today, and that despite all its ups and downs, it remains one of the best places to live in the world.
After all, if an immigrant can’t publicly profess their appreciation for this country, who can?
Funny, provocative and unswervingly perceptive, An Immigrant’s Love letter to the West interrogates the developing sense of self-loathing the Western sphere has adopted and offers an alternative perspective. Exploring race politics, free speech, immigration and more, Kisin argues that wrongdoing and guilt need not pervade how we feel about the West – and Britain – today, and that despite all its ups and downs, it remains one of the best places to live in the world.
After all, if an immigrant can’t publicly profess their appreciation for this country, who can?
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West is a paean to the freedom and dignity that many in the West take for granted. With solemnity and irreverence, Kisin, who grew up in the Soviet Union, explains that the loss off liberty is not imprisonment - it is horror. We are not born valuing self-determination, free speech and open inquiry. Each generation must relearn and fight for these values or we will revisit the horrors of the past upon ourselves. This book is a reminder of what's at stake.
Kisin has written a lively and spirited book defending the society he is grateful to have found himself in. If I can return the compliment, we are lucky to have him.
Kisin's cool, steady but urgent message, that we should value and protect what we have, could not be more timely amid today's shrill screams about the various 'isms' and 'phobias' of which our country is irredeemably guilty
An engaging writer with a nice line in self-deprecating wit
[An] excellent book . . . both a thank-you to the country [Kisin] now calls home and a reminder to many of his generation that they should be careful what they wish for.
[Kisin is] a comedian by trade, but a writer by nature . . . powerful . . . a deadly warning which somehow manages to be bright and breezy
Kisin's book [has] a powerful moral quality that ultimately makes it worth reading