Abstract
Goldberg is called in by the KGB, who want him to renounce any intention of emigrating to Israel. After a protracted session, Goldberg finally succumbs and agrees to write a leter of renunciation to his relatives. The KGB officials hand him pen and paper. Under their watchful gaze Goldberg begins his letter to his uncle in Haifa:
‘Dear Uncle Yoram,
‘I've been meaning to write to you for absolute ages. At last I have found a time and a place…’
For Mikhail Kheifets, author of A Time and a Place, from which the extract below is taken, the time was the summer and autumn of 1976 and the place the ‘Dubrovlag’ prison camp in Mordovia (USSR). Sentenced in September 1974 to four years in strict regime labour camps for compiling the works of the exiled poet, Joseph Brodsky, and writing an introduction to the collection, he was released in April of last year and is now serving a two-year term of exile in Kazakhstan.