Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip: The 1935 Travelogue of Two Soviet Writers by Ilia Ilf
In 1935, well into the era of communism, Russian satirical writers Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov came to the U.S posing as special correspondents for the Russian newspaper Pravda. They drove cross-country and back on a ten-week trip, recording images of American life through the lens of a Leica camera and humorous impressions of Americana in their notebooks. When they returned home, they published their work in Ogonek, the Soviet equivalent of Time magazine, and later in the book Odnoetazhnaia Amerika (Single-Storied America). This wonderful lost work - filled with wry observations, biting opinions, and telling photographs - is now collected in Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip, the first English publication.