Natan Sharansky – författare

A classic account of courage, integrity, and most of all, belongingIn 1977, Natan Sharansky, a leading activist in the democratic dissident movement in the Soviet Union and the movement for free Jewish emigration, was arrested by the KGB. He spent nine years as a political prisoner, convicted of treason against the state. Every day, Sharansky fought for individual freedom in the face of overt tyranny, a struggle that would come to define the rest of his life.Never Alone reveals how Sharansky's years in prison, many spent in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for a very public life after his release. As an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky brought extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising, often uncomfortable, honesty. His story is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, and from his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people.Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man who embraced the essential human struggle: to find his own voice, his own faith, and the people to whom he could belong.

Natan Sharansky believes that the truest expression of democracy is the ability to stand in the middle of a town square and express one's views without fear of imprisonment. He should know. A dissident in the USSR, Sharansky was jailed for nine years for challenging Soviet policies. During that time he reinforced his moral conviction that democracy is essential to both protecting human rights and maintaining global peace and security. Sharansky was catapulted onto the Israeli political stage in 1996. In the last eight years, he has served as a minister in four different Israeli cabinets, including a stint as Deputy Prime Minister, playing a key role in government decision making from the peace negotiations at Wye to the war against Palestinian terror. In his views, he has been as consistent as he has been stubborn: Tyranny, whether in the Soviet Union or the Middle East, must always be made to bow before democracy. Drawing on a lifetime of experience of democracy and its absence, Sharansky believes that only democracy can safeguard the well-being of societies. For Sharansky, when it comes to democracy, politics is not a matter of left and right, but right and wrong. This is a passionately argued book from a man who carries supreme moral authority to make the case he does here: that the spread of democracy everywhere is not only possible, but also essential to the survival of our civilization. His argument is sure to stir controversy on all sides this is arguably the great issue of our times.

Natan Shcharansky was born in 1948 in Stalino, now Donetsk, Ukraine. He was a member of the human rights movement in the USSR and one of the leaders of the struggle for the right of Soviet Jews to repatriate to Israel. In 1976, Shcharansky co-founded the Helsinki Accords Compliance Group, which monitored violations of the Helsinki Accords, including violations against various religious and national groups in the Soviet Union. In 1977 he was arrested on charges of treason and espionage. After nine years in prison, he was released on February 11, 1986. 1996-2005 - Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of four Israeli governments.Alexei Navalny: "I really have no idea how he survived... Reading his book, I sometimes shake my head to get rid of the feeling that I am reading my own personal file. For example: a SHIZO/PKT building is a separate barracks behind barbed wire. The maximum term in the SHIZO is 15 days. And I was not surprised when, after several "spots" in a row, I was transferred as a persistent offender to a PKT for six months. It was exactly the same.