Stalin's Daughter

The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva

by Rosemary Sullivan

On Sale: 03/22/2016

Stalin's Daughter

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Stalin's Daughter

The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva

by Rosemary Sullivan

On Sale: 03/22/2016

Format:

PEN

RBC Taylor Prize

British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

National Book Critics Circle Award

Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-Fiction

About the Book

Award-winning author Rosemary Sullivan returns with a revelatory biography of Svetlana Alliluyeva, a woman fated to live in the shadow of her father, notorious Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Born in 1926, Svetlana Alliluyeva spent her youth inside the Kremlin as her father’s power soared. Eighty-five years later, she died alone and penniless in rural Wisconsin. Revealed here for the first time, the many lives of Josef Stalin’s daughter form a riveting portrait of a woman who fled halfway around the world to escape her birthright.

Protected from the mass starvation and murder her father inflicted upon Russian citizens, Svetlana was not immune to tragedy. She lost her mother to suicide, and her father’s merciless purges claimed relatives and her lover (who was exiled to Siberia).

After her father’s death, Svetlana shocked the world by defecting to the United States at the height of the Cold War—leaving behind two children. There, she found only more heartbreak. She married Wesley Peters, a member of Frank Lloyd Wright’s inner circle, and they had a child. But the marriage disintegrated. No matter how much distance she put between her past and her present, she could not undo the emotional and psychological damage her father had wrought.

With access to FBI, CIA and Russian state archives, as well as with the close cooperation of Svetlana’s daughter, Sullivan has created a masterful biography that is epic in scope, yet narrated with remarkable intimacy. In this book, Sullivan cements her status as the pre-eminent literary biographer in Canada.

Critical Praise

Through Sullivan’s extensive reportage, we are presented with a portrait of a woman whose life was defined by inherited notoriety and constant fear. No matter where she went Svetlana was recognized and judged by her father’s crimes (or victories, depending on who was doing the judging). She was a fascinating, troubled woman who tried desperately to be Stalin’s antithesis. Sullivan’s greatest accomplishment is making clear that the daughter, while not deserving of her father’s infamy, is certainly worthy of sympathy. — Quill & Quire

Stalin’s Daughter is a captivating tale of intrigue, tragedy and survival. — Maclean's

Stalin’s Daughter soars on details culled from dozens of interviews and impressive archival research from KGB and CIA files. The glimpses into the Stalin household are invariably fascinating, and the subsequent wanderings of Svetlana as she searches for inner peace take on an epic quality. . . . It is to Sullivan’s credit that she makes the Homeric wanderings of Svetlana Alliluyeva-who died, almost penniless, in 2011-not only comprehensible, but also unforgettably moving. — Newsday

Sullivan does an admirable job of researching, organizing and contextualizing the events of Alliluyeva’s bewildering life in a highly accessible style. . . . [She] paints a portrait of a formidable woman who is far from dead, but rather engaged in a permanent battle to defy that tragic sense of destiny. Her Alliluyeva is passionate, defiant, ferociously intelligent, quick to fall in love, quick to take offense and principled to the point of self-destruction. — Dallas Morning News

A biography of haunting fascination portrays its subject as a pawn of historical circumstance who tried valiantly to create her own life. . . . With great compassion, Sullivan reveals how both sides played her for their own purposes, yet she was a writer first and foremost, a passionate Russian soul who wanted a human connection yet could not quite find the way into the Western heart. The author manages suspense and intrigue at every turn. — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Sullivan masterfully employs interviews, Alliluyeva’s own letters, and the contents of CIA, KGB, and Soviet archives to stitch together a coherent narrative of her fractured life. . . . A head-spinning journey as Alliluyeva attempts to escape her father’s shadow without ever fully comprehending the man who cast it. — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Insightful and thoroughly researched. . . . This excellent and engrossing biography is suitable for anyone interested in Russian history or in Svetlana’s struggle to make a difference in a world that never could separate her from her father. — Library Journal

Sullivan draws on previously secret documents and interviews with Svetlana’s American daughter, her friends, and the CIA ‘handler’ who escorted her to the U.S. for riveting accounts of her complicated life. — Booklist (starred review)

[T]he masterfully told and meticulously researched story of a truly remarkable life. . . . Sullivan weaves Svetlana’s fascinating story with cinematic grace, bringing settings as diverse as Moscow, India, England and the United States to life with equal ease. — BookPage

Compassionate and compelling, Sullivan sensitively delivers the intimate, tragic life story of a woman who was Stalin’s only daughter in all its strangeness: from her mother’s suicide in the Kremlin to her defection and her love affairs; from Oxford, England, and Princeton, New Jersey, to impoverished death in Wisconsin-always haunted by Stalin. This is not a political story but a quest for love in the heart of darkness. — Simon Sebag Montefiore, bestselling author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

[Sullivan] doesn’t flinch at Svetlana’s flaws-her rages and episodes of imperiousness, her slowness to accept the truth about Stalin-but it’s also clear Sullivan has great sympathy for her subject’s core of pain. — Toronto Star

“[An] extraordinary book…. Rosemary Sullivan possesses the sensitivity necessary to unlock a beguiling and complex character worthy of admiration, not ridicule…. Superb.” — Washington Post

Sullivan tells a nuanced story that, while invariably sympathetic, nonetheless allows readers the freedom of their own interpretations. The complex and tragic figure that emerges offers an extraordinary glimpse into one of the grimmest chapters of the past century. — New York Times Book Review

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Resources

Product Details

  • ISBN: 9781443414432
  • ISBN 10: 1443414433
  • Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers
  • On Sale: 03/22/2016
  • Pages: 768
  • List Price:24.99 CAD
  • BISAC1 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women
  • BISAC2 : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical
  • BISAC3 : HISTORY / Europe / Russia & the Former Soviet Union

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