Both witness to and victim of Stalins reign of terror, a courageous woman tells the story of her harrowing eighteen-year odyssey through Russias prisons and labor camps. Translated by Paul Stevenson and Max Hayward. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

During Stalin's reign of terror, Evgenia Ginzburg, a literature professor, was sent to 10 years hard labor in a gulag in Siberia. Having lost everything, and no longer wishing to live, she meets the camp doctor and begins to come back to life.