How I Became a Man: A Life with Communists, Atheists, and Other Nice People

by Fr. Alexander Krylov

This book takes us into the heart of the Soviet Union, where Alexander Krylov grew up as an underground Catholic in the 1970s and 1980s, never even entering a church until he was a teenager. How does faith in God live on when God is outlawed? How I Became a Man shows us, offering glimpses at the everyday reality of Communism through the eyes of a child, with humor, irony, and a keen sense of human goodness. Divided into short vignettes, this book challenges us look at our own lives differently—especially with regard to freedom. How I Became a Man is a courageous, joyous, even whimsical testimony of living the Catholic faith in today's world.

Genres: History, European History, Nonfiction

162 pages, Paperback

Published October 20, 2022

Reviews

[tradcat]

Communism through the eyes of a child

[Kate Madrid]

Funny! Also heartbreaking and scary and surreal. But most of all full of goodwill for his fellow pilgrims.

[The Engineer]

This is a very well written book, that really shows how life in Soviet Russia was, in relation to spiritual education, temporal education, and day to day life. It also shows how important it is for a country that wants to control it's citizens to exclude religion from society. The threat of social ostracization if you're publicly religious is very well shown in this book, with most government employees being actively afraid of religion.

[Michael]

Written as a set of short vignettes/reflections, Krylov provides an interesting insight into what is now a vanished world, namely that of the Soviet Union during the last two decades of its existence.