Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva

‘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 Times


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.”