Rosemary Sullivan.
ROSEMARY SULLIVAN
the extraordinary and tumultuous life of svetlana alliluyeva (2015)
Winner of the Plutarch Award.
A biography of a daughter doomed to live her life under the shadow of the monstruous reputation of her father, Josef Stalin. It was only after his death that she came to realise the full brutality of his regime. In 1967 she surprised the world by defecting to live in the USA, leaving her two children behind in Russia.
Her story has an unhappy ending. Arrived in the USA, she moved often, had an unhappy marriage, and died in poverty.
The New York Times wrote of the book: "[A] measured, informative biography...fascinating...an admiring portrait of an amazingly adaptable person facing all but insurmountable odds...[and who] refused to let her lineage seal her fate."
THE AUTHOR
Rosemary Sullivan is a Canadian author and poet who is Professor Emerita at the University of Toronto. Born near Montreal, she took her undergraduate degree at McGill University, her master’s degree at the University of Connecticut and her PhD at the University of Sussex. She is a prolific writer of both poetry and books - including six biographies.
