`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."