Lisa Cooper

Lisa Cooper was born in 1969 in Norwich, England. She studied Russian at Edinburgh University, attracted by a passion for languages and a fascination with the country's people and history.

As a student, she spent a year in the southern Russian city of Voronezh. Armed with nothing more than an old address dating from the 1960s and a family tree, she managed to make contact with cousins in Kiev, who introduced her to a web of relatives she knew nothing about. The experience helped breed an interest in both family history and Ukrainian history.

She lives in Cornwall with her husband and two young children, and works as a journalist. This is her first book.