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The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach

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The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko

A Novel

by Scott Stambach

Narrator Dan Bittner

This audiobook uses AI narration.

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Length 8 hours 13 minutes

Language English

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“Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko has spent his entire life in a cloistered world, but he possesses a keen intellect and an understanding of humanity that far exceeds the confines of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. Severely physically handicapped due to radiation poisoning, Ivan has never had a friend beyond his caregivers at the hospital -- until Polina is admitted. The two teens form a fast and indelible bond that will leave readers in awe of the tenacity of their commitment. Heartbreaking and awe-inspiring.”
— Pamela Klinger-Horn • Excelsior Bay Books

Summary
About the author
About the narrator

The Fault In Our Stars meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Seventeen-year-old Ivan Isaenko is a life-long resident of the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children in Belarus. For the most part, every day is exactly the same for Ivan, which is why he turns everything into a game, manipulating people and events around him for his own amusement.

Until Polina arrives.

She steals his books. She challenges his routine. The nurses like her.

She is exquisite. Soon, he cannot help being drawn to her and the two forge a romance that is tenuous and beautiful and everything they never dared dream of. Before, he survived by being utterly detached from things and people. Now, Ivan wants something more: Ivan wants Polina to live.

This program features a bonus interview with the author.

Fiction Perspectives on Disability Fiction - Literary

SCOTT STAMBACH lives in San Diego where he teaches physics and astronomy at Grossmont and Mesa colleges. He also collaborates with Science for Monks, a group of educators and monastics working to establish science programs in Tibetan Monasteries throughout India. He has written about his experiences working with monks of Sera Jey monastery and has published short fiction in several literary journals including Ecclectica, Stirring, and Convergence.

Dan Bittner has narrated dozens of audio books and has starred on stage and on the screen, in movies such as Men in Black, Adventureland, and the Producers: The Movie Musical. He has also appeared onstage as Macbeth Malcolm and Sherlock Holmes in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He has narrated popular audio books such as The Eleventh Plague, Hero, and Forever.