Wave of Terror is a novel about the effects of the Soviet invasion of Belarus in 1939 on a small Ukrainian village in the Pinsk marshes as seen through the eyes of a young school teacher named Ivan Kulik. Liberated from their uncaring Polish landlords, the village is first happy, but later finds they are faced with an even worse threat from Stalinist oppression.

Originally written in Ukrainian and published as Voshchad' (Incipient dawn) in Toronto in 1972, this edition was translated into English by Erma Odrach, the author's daughter. The story is based on Odrach's personal experiences and was written to expose the horrors of Stalinist Russia, but now reads as historical fiction.

The novel is best at portraying the people and their behavior as they struggle to adapt and survive under changing and unjust conditions. Particularly well done is Ivan's infatuation with the lovely Marusia, and her uncaring response as she tries hard to adjust to the new Russian social environment that Ivan disdains.

Recently, I decided to focus upon reading great but lesser known masters of repressed writers from the Soviet Union during the time of Lenin and Stalin. Since some of the finest writing was considered to be critical of Soviet leadership, many beautifully written masterpieces have only fairly recently come to see the light of day. Of course, Solzhenitzyn has been recognized for his trials on the gulag with the Nobel Prize but there are many other genuinely great and supremely gifted writers of the era. And Theodore Odrach has earned a worthy place of prominence among the most talented and courageous authors of an era in which writers truly suffered for their art. In Odrach's case he escaped from the Ukraine and came to North America to live and write in Toronto. He was published by a discerning publishing house in Chicago who recognized his talent, the importance of his message and the sublime talents of Erma Odrach as her father's translator. Like other Soviet era writer's Odrach is powerful because of his understatement and the highly polished, vivid almost journalistic style. His journalistic writing style at times reminded me of Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls and in A Farewell to Arms. The characters are uniquely and sensitively drawn portraits with realistic traits which bring out their humanity. The women in this book are especially well sketched, and -- although the writer was a man and capturing the essence of women is more challenging than writing about one's own gender -- perhaps Erma's devoted commitment to find Moliere's "mots juste" helps to distinguish every character in this novel. The Odrachs make this incredibly difficult era, with its incessant danger and hardship, come alive luminously. There are profound and enduring lessons in this novel for freedom-loving peoples worldwide -- hope for those seeking democracy through perserverance and caution to those blessed to live in democratic societies whose freedoms are at risk from powerful megalomaniacs. I really can't say enough in praise of the courage and talents of the Odrachs whose important work is worthy of wide readership. The Odrachs have given us the benefit of a great, living legacy to treasure: I really loved this intelligent, humble and truly beautiful novel. It represents a high standard of novel which America should aspire both to write and widely read. I was moved deeply and inspired by this lyrical, gorgeously crafted novel -- my best advice is to buy and read this timeless masterpiece now: you'll never forget this book.

In the late 1930s, Fedir Sholomitsky lived in Pinsk, Belorussia, working as a schoolteacher and publishing an underground, anti-communist newspaper. Hunted by the Soviets, he eventually created a new identity for himself, escaped to Czechoslovakia, then Germany and finally Canada.

So it was at the age of 42, that Theodor Odrach settled into life in Toronto, working in a printing shop by day and writing stories, in Ukrainian, by night. He would live only another 11 years, but the stories he created live on thanks to the luminous translations of his daughter, Erma.

Compared to Solzhenitsyn and Orwell for his journalistic storytelling abilities, Odrach has a terse, compact writing style. In Wave of Terror, he draws on a wealth of personal experience and his natural gifts as a storyteller to provide an almost documentary tale of the Stalinist steamrollering of rural Belorussia and Ukraine in 1939, after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. (As reviewed in Russian Life