by Rosemary Sullivan (Author)

Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist

PEN Literary Award Finalist

New York Times Notable Book

Washington Post Notable Book

Boston Globe Best Book of the Year

The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators--her father, Josef Stalin.

Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy--the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father.

As she gradually learned about the extent of her father's brutality after his death, Svetlana could no longer keep quiet and in 1967 shocked the world by defecting to the United States--leaving her two children behind. But although she was never a part of her father's regime, she could not escape his legacy. Her life in America was fractured; she moved frequently, married disastrously, shunned other Russian exiles, and ultimately died in poverty in Wisconsin.

With access to KGB, CIA, and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana's daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana's incredible life in a masterful account of unprecedented intimacy. Epic in scope, it's a revolutionary biography of a woman doomed to be a political prisoner of her father's name. Sullivan explores a complicated character in her broader context without ever losing sight of her powerfully human story, in the process opening a closed, brutal world that continues to fascinate us.

Illustrated with photographs.

Front Jacket

Born in 1926, Svetlana Alliluyeva grew up inside the Kremlin as her father's power soared along with that of the Soviet Union. Eighty-five years later, she died alone in rural Wisconsin. Revealed here for the first time, the many lives of Joseph Stalin's daughter form a riveting portrait of a woman who fled halfway around the world to escape her birthright.

Svetlana was protected from the horrors that her father inflicted upon Soviet citizens, but she was not immune to tragedy. Her mother committed suicide, and her father's purges claimed the lives of aunts and uncles; he also exiled her lover to Siberia. After her father's death, she defected to the United States at the height of the Cold War--leaving behind two children. For a time, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin community, overseen by his controversial third wife, was a second family; Svetlana married a member, and they had a child. But Wright's widow manipulated their friendship for financial gain, and the marriage disintegrated.

Drawing on FBI, CIA, and Russian State Archives, and with the cooperation of Svetlana's daughter, Rosemary Sullivan has created this masterful biography that places Svetlana in a broader context, without losing sight of her powerfully human story that reveals the heart of a brutal world and offers an unprecedented look at its mastermind.--Cokie Roberts, New York Times bestselling author of Founding Mothers, Ladies of Liberty, and Capital Dames

Back Jacket

Born in 1926, Svetlana Alliluyeva grew up inside the Kremlin as her father's power soared along with that of the Soviet Union. Eighty-five years later, she died alone in rural Wisconsin. Revealed here for the first time, the many lives of Joseph Stalin's daughter form a riveting portrait of a woman who fled halfway around the world to escape her birthright.

Svetlana was protected from the horrors that her father inflicted upon Soviet citizens, but she was not immune to tragedy. Her mother committed suicide, and her father's purges claimed the lives of aunts and uncles; he also exiled her lover to Siberia. After her father's death, she defected to the United States at the height of the Cold War--leaving behind two children. For a time, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin community, overseen by his controversial third wife, was a second family; Svetlana married a member, and they had a child. But Wright's widow manipulated their friendship for financial gain, and the marriage disintegrated.

Drawing on FBI, CIA, and Russian State Archives, and with the cooperation of Svetlana's daughter, Rosemary Sullivan has created this masterful biography that places Svetlana in a broader context, without losing sight of her powerfully human story that reveals the heart of a brutal world and offers an unprecedented look at its mastermind.