Alexandra Brushtein

Alexandra Yakovlevna Brushtein (Алекса́ндра Я́ковлевна Бруште́йн; née Vygodskaya; 11 August 1884 – 20 September 1968) was a Russian and Soviet writer, playwright, and memoirist.

She authored more than sixty plays, mostly for children and youth, and adapted classic works such as Uncle Tom's Cabin and Don Quixote under a pseudonym.

Alexandra Brushtein would become most famous for her autobiographical series The Road Goes into the Distance: Written during the Khrushchev Thaw and thus not so heavily restrained by Soviet censorship, the book series is considered one of the best examples of young adult Soviet literature; its popularity has endured in contemporary Russia.

[3] The Road Goes into the Distance shows life in the Russian Empire during its last decades from the perspective of a Jewish girl from an educated urban family.

The Zionism of the author's father (who chaired the city's Zionist organization) is never mentioned, the role of Judaism is underplayed, and many Jewish names of the people who became the prototypes of the book's characters are changed to Russian names, which may be attributed both to self-censorship and censorship due to the USSR's policy.