First published in French in 1945, this is a memoir in the classic sense. A remembrance and examination of a period from one's life placed in the context of family and culture. Many recent memoirs tend towards self-absorbed trauma narrative. The back cover blurb - "By turns gossipy and romantic, wry and moving, Days in the Caucasus is a coming of age story and portrait of a vanished world."

Refined, clear prose... humor, pathos, reflection and a small bit of romantic recollection characterize this fascinating memoir of a girlhood in Baku in the early 20th century, when oil and wealth changed the fortunes of some Azeris, and when the Russian Revolution changed them yet again. B&W photos at the end of the book too. 

Amusing and one of a kind. I was always bound to enraptured since I’m nothing if not a Commonwealth of Independent States weeb, but there’s more merit to this book than just novelty. Instead of — like many emigre memoirs — being a myopic lament of a lost society, the book is a clear eyed recollection of the tradition and secularism in the Azerbaijan of the author’s childhood and the ways they shaped both her (short lived) nation and her own person.

This book works because Banine has an adult’s understanding for her younger self and her extremely large and casually incestous family, but not much sentimentality for any of it.