I Want to Live
Author | : Nina Lugovskai︠a︡ |
Publisher | : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
Total Pages | : 316 |
Release | : 2006 |
ISBN-10 | : 0618605754 |
ISBN-13 | : 9780618605750 |
Rating | : 4/5 (54 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Recently unearthed in the archives of Stalin's secret police, the NKVD, Nina Lugovskaya's diary offers rare insight into the life of a teenage girl in Stalin's Russia-when fear of arrest was a fact of daily life. Like Anne Frank, thirteen-year-old Nina is conscious of the extraordinary dangers around her and her family, yet she is preoccupied by ordinary teenage concerns: boys, parties, her appearance, who she wants to be when she grows up. As Nina records her most personal emotions and observations, herreflections shape a diary that is as much a portrait of her intense inner world as it is the Soviet outer one. Preserved here, these markings-the evidence used to convict Nina as a "counterrevolutionary"- offer today's reader a fascinating perspective on the era in which she lived.