64 pages • 2 hours read
City of Thieves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008
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Introduction
City of Thieves
- Genre: Fiction; historical suspense
- Originally Published: 2008
- Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
- Structure/Length: 27 chapters; 258 pages; approx. 8 hours, 28 minutes on audio
- Protagonist and Central Conflict: During the siege of Leningrad in 1942, 17-year-old Lev Beniov is arrested when he is caught looting the goods from a dead parachutist. He assumes he will be executed, but instead, a Soviet colonel offers Lev and newly-met cellmate Kolya, an outspoken deserter, a chance at freedom if they can procure an impossible-to-find luxury in the starved city: a dozen eggs for the cake for the colonel’s daughter’s wedding.
- Potential Sensitivity Issues: Wartime violence; antisemitism; death; sexual exploitation; animal cruelty; profanity; cannibalism
David Benioff (David Friedman), Author
- Bio: American writer, screenwriter, and producer; born in 1970 in New York City and raised in Manhattan; attended Dartmouth College, Trinity College in Dublin, and University of California at Irvine, where he earned an MFA in creative writing; worked on screenplays for Troy (2004) and The Kite Runner (2007) among other films; co-creator of Game of Thrones (2011-2019; television series based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series)
- Other Works: The 25th Hour (2001); When the Nines Roll Over (And Other Stories) (2004)
CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:
