Sana Valiulina has a thing for love stories - whether set in a squalid Moscow student flat or against the epic backdrop of Stalinist Russia. Her Radio Books contribution is no exception but this time the locale is a seaside resort where Europe meets Asia. 

Sana Valiulina - 'Summer in Zantiadi'

"Writing is a difficult process," says author Sana Valiulina. And when it doesn't work out, she's prone to suffering an identity crisis. Perhaps not surprising considering she was born in Tallinn, Estonia in 1964 to parents of ethnic Tatar origins; studied Norwegian, linguistics and literature in Moscow, where she met her Dutch husband; and moved with him to Amsterdam in 1989 where she now writes in Dutch.

Sex, love and Stalin
Valiulina made her much-discussed literary debut in 2001 with Het kruis (The Cross). It follows an Estonian girl named Alija to a dissipated Moscow student flat where secret struggles with sexuality and permissiveness abound. A year later she had a collection of novellas published, entitled Vanuit nergens met liefde (From Nowhere with Love).

Her breakthrough novel appeared in 2006. In the narrative tradition of Dostoevsky, Didar and Faruk is an epic love story set in Stalinist Russia and is loosely based on the lives of her parents. Didar and Faruk are distant cousins from a Tatar family that was dispersed in the displacement of ethnic groups in Russia in the 1920s.

"Adlifa barely managed to force herself to visit her father's grave at the cemetery that, according to Tatar custom, was located on a hill with a birch thicket. Between the white tree trunks she saw the praying sage. According to her mother he came here every day and when he was done with the dead, he also prayed for all those who had disappeared or had starved to death and who had been buried elsewhere or not at all..."

- from Didar and Faruk

Although the course of history keeps Didar and Faruk separated for years, they keep their love alive through their correspondence. Many critics compared the book to Doctor Zhivago and it was short-listed for the prestigious Libris Literature Prize in 2007.

"If I had written my books in Russian I would've felt limited," says Valiulina. "Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are always looking over your shoulder. That's how I was raised, always in the shadow of those great minds. It wasn't until I had finished Didar and Faruk that I discovered how much I've been influenced by them and followed their tradition. However terrible a story is, you have to write it in such a way that it remains moving."

Mysterious spell
Romance is also an element in her Radio Books story Summer in Zantiadi. Zlatka, a young woman vacationing at a seaside resort, becomes bored with her companion. Striking off on her own, she falls under the spell of an attractive but mysterious boy.

" 'You mustn't sleep in the sun, Miss.' She lifted her head, startled. Just a metre away, right opposite her, she saw a boy's head with a smile so wide it hardly fitted in his face. Like her he lay on his stomach, with his hands folded under his chin."

Summer in Zantiadi by Sana Valiulina was translated by Michael O'Loughlin. His work is included in the acclaimed collection Turning Tides: Modern Dutch & Flemish Verse in English Versions by Irish Poets.