- Yelena Khanga
Yelena Khanga ( _ru. Еле́на Абду́лловна Ха́нга; also known as Elena Khanga) was born in 1962 and raised in
Moscow ,USSR , and came to theUnited States in 1990 to write (with Susan Jacoby) "Soul to Soul: The Story of a Black Russian American Family: 1865 - 1992" ( [http://www.wcwonline.org/womensreview/wrob-backissues_index_author.html] ). Khanga divides her time betweenNew York City andMoscow .The daughter of Abdullah Kassim (onetime vice president of Zanzibar) and Lily (a historian and educator; maiden name, Golden) Khanga (pronounced Han ga), she is of
African , Russian andPolish Jewish descent, the great-granddaughter of a formerMississippi slave and a Polish rabbi. Her American maternal grandmother, of Polish Jewish descent, was a Russian-English translator for a Soviet news agency.Yelena Khanga was the moderator of the Russian television talk show "The Domino Effect" ( [http://www.middlebury.edu/academics/ls/russian/activities/2002.htm] ). One of her interviewees was
Paul Klebnikov , Russian-based editor of "Fortune" who was later murdered under mysterious circumstances.She was also a performer with a comedy group in Brighton Beach called "Kanotye".
Quotes
"My grandmother often said, "Learn to write, Yelena, because it is a piece of bread." In the Russia of my youth, it was a prestigious thing to be a writer. Even if you had no money, people still felt your life was graced by art."
Links
* [http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/outstandingbooks/biographyoutstanding.htm Booklist awards]
* [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_n1_v26/ai_16848104/pg_3 Findarticles.com]
* [http://www.answers.com/topic/yelena-khanga Answer.com]
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