Elena Lappin the Novelist

Apparently, I was the last person in the blogosphere to read this article by Elena Lappin about her terrible treatment by US Customs, but here it is:

For US immigration, my British passport was not enough of an identity. The officer said, pointedly, “You are Russian, yet you claim to be British”, an accusation based on the fact that I was born in Moscow (though I never lived there). Your governor, went my mental reply, is Austrian, yet he claims to be American.

BTW, Lappin has written several books. Foreign Brides (available on amazon.com for $0.43!), a book about modern Czech fiction(available on amazon for $4!) and the Nose(available from UK Amazon only).

As an aside, let me express dismay at not being able to find much of her writing online except that famous article. Here’s a slate piece Elena Lappin wrote about Iraqi poet Fawzi Karim. I realize that Lappin’s treatment at LAX was inexusable, but even she has to realize that it furthered her writing reputation more than anything else she had written.