Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life - Hardcover

Zinovieff, Sofka

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1862079196 ISBN 13: 9781862079199

Publisher: Granta Books, 2007

Synopsis

In 1907, Princess Sophy ('Sofka') DolgorOuky was born in St Petersburg. Members of the Imperial family had attended her parents' wedding earlier that same year, and the child was born into a privileged world of nurses, private tutors and elegant tea parties. The Russian Revolution caused the princess to flee across Europe to England, but it was the Second World War that left the deepest marks on her adult life. During those years, she left her first husband and lost her second. Later, she was interned in a Nazi prison camp, where she discovered Communism and showed great bravery in defending the rights of the Jewish prisoners. It was her Communism which took her back to the Soviet Union as an improbable tour guide for British workers. And Communism, albeit indirectly, brought her the last love of her life, Jack, a working-class Londoner who had never been abroad. Sofka's colourful life also included a close friendship with Laurence Olivier, innumerable lovers, some serious, some quickly discarded, and an abiding love of reading and especially poetry. This affectionate portrait of the 'red princess' by her granddaughter and namesake uses letter, diaries and interviews to recreate a vanished world and also explore the author's own Russian roots.

About this title

Review:

"(****) Red Princess has all the vital ingredients... a beguiling
mixture of biography and travelogue" -- Mail on Sunday

"... a life of eccentricity and excess; of loss and exile; of
courage, and of cruelty that reverberated down the generations. Red
Princess is a small memorial to all the lives dislodged by the shifting
sands of modern history." -- Guardian

"...anyone reading about her sizzling charm, guts and literary
gifts can't help thinking it would have been fun to know her." -- The Economist

"Anyone reading about her sizzling charm, guts and literary gifts
can't help thinking it would have been fun to know her"
-- Economist

"Beautifully written, fast paced book... part biography of an
extraordinary woman, part loving memoir of a relative... hugely enjoyable
read" -- Daily Mail

"Her story is a remarkable, and almost unbelievable one. Told by a
sympathetic granddaughter, it becomes an intimate one, too" -- Scotsman

"It's impossible not to like Red Princess because Zinovieff writes
with so much passion... Raw and heartbreaking." -- The Herald

"Red Princess delights on several levels: as a detective story,
biography, family saga... (a) fascinating account" -- Times Literary Supplement

"Red Princess) is a union of comedy and tragedy infused with the
heady romance of a vanished Russia... A marvellous story" -- Guardian

"a piercing portrait of an extraordinary woman who was both a
Russian princess and a communist." -- Telegraph

About the Author:

Sofka Zinovieff was born in England and is of Russian extraction. She studied anthropology at Cambridge; then, after spells living in Russia and Italy, she settled with her family in Greece, an experience which she described in her first, highly acclaimed book, Eurydice Street (Granta, 2003), which has been translated into three languages.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1862079196
• ISBN 13: 9781862079199
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368