The author of The Last Angry Man, The ttostage Heart and

Holocaust has written a stunning roman a clef set entirely

in Russia. Karpov s Brain is the story of Abram Levitch, a

most unlikely hero, who out of a profound desire to be

free seeks to emigrate to Israel where he will join his

beloved wife. A man who seeks neither headlines nor

fame becomes a figure of courage and the focus of in

ternational attention when the Soviet state persecutes

and imprisons him.

The campaign to discredit and convict Levitch is

headed by Andrei Karpov, a suave and vicious top agent

in the KGB. He forces Dr. Irina Tashenko, a beautiful

brain surgeon who had once been his lover, to col-

laborate in a scheme to implicate Levitch on espionage

charges. But with the Levitch case almost sealed, Kar-

pov begins to suffer severe epileptic seizures.

To relieve them, Irina performs a rare brain opera-

tion that severs the connection between the two hemi-

spheres of Karpov s brain, the "good" side and the

"bad" side. lrina becomes guilty over her complicity in