Black Tea

Shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Christopher Bland Prize 2020

Highly informed with a unique perspective, Stephen Morris' Black Tea chronicles the changing face of Russia over thirty years. Both memoir and travelogue, Stephen hauntingly explores love and identity, commitment and family.

Stephen Morris was always fascinated by Russia. As a child caught between his evangelical grandmother's warnings on the evils of socialism and his father's activism for nuclear disarmament, his ambiguous position was exemplified by a huge military map of the Soviet Union tacked to his bedroom wall.

In the dying days of the Soviet, he travels to Moscow and meets and marries a beautiful Russian. Although in London for a time, his wife and children return to live in rural Russia. Stephen does not go with them.

He later returns to take them on a trip through Russia, with the hope of reconnecting with his family and the country. Yet the country has changed, and so has his family. Adrift, he embarks on a lyrical journey that will him from the White Sea to the Black Sea.