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.’ “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