Stalin's Daughter : The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva, by Rosemary Sullivan

Who 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