‘Compassionate and compelling, this is not a political story but a quest for love in the heart of darkness’ Simon Sebag Montefiore‘A biography on an epic scale, with a combination of tragedy and history worthy of a Russian novel’ Independent‘Superbly well told’ Sunday TimesWho was Svetlana Alliluyeva?A little girl, her father’s only daughter, his “little sparrow”; instructed to bury her secrets in her heart by her mother, who shot herself soon after.An observer as her relatives were mercilessly killed and her first love exiled.A woman who tore through relationships with men, joined and abandoned various religions, and became the most famous defector to the United States.The victim of an inescapable truth: “You are Stalin’s daughter. . . . You can’t live your own life. You can’t live any life. You exist only in reference to a name.”

‘Compassionate and compelling, this is not a political story but a quest for love in the heart of darkness’ Simon Sebag Montefiore‘A biography on an epic scale, with a combination of tragedy and history worthy of a Russian novel’ Independent‘Superbly well told’ Sunday TimesWho was Svetlana Alliluyeva?A little girl, her father’s only daughter, his “little sparrow”; instructed to bury her secrets in her heart by her mother, who shot herself soon after.An observer as her relatives were mercilessly killed and her first love exiled.A woman who tore through relationships with men, joined and abandoned various religions, and became the most famous defector to the United States.The victim of an inescapable truth: “You are Stalin’s daughter. . . . You can’t live your own life. You can’t live any life. You exist only in reference to a name.”

‘Compassionate and compelling, this is not a political story but a quest for love in the heart of darkness’ Simon Sebag Montefiore‘A biography on an epic scale, with a combination of tragedy and history worthy of a Russian novel’ Independent‘Superbly well told’ Sunday TimesWho was Svetlana Alliluyeva?A little girl, her father’s only daughter, his “little sparrow”; instructed to bury her secrets in her heart by her mother, who shot herself soon after.An observer as her relatives were mercilessly killed and her first love exiled.A woman who tore through relationships with men, joined and abandoned various religions, and became the most famous defector to the United States.The victim of an inescapable truth: “You are Stalin’s daughter. . . . You can’t live your own life. You can’t live any life. You exist only in reference to a name.”