The Akhmatova Journals: Volume 1: 1938-1941

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was one of the greatest Russian poets of this century. But during her life she was subjected to scathing critical attacks, denounced as "half-nun, half-whore," and then expelled from the Writers' Union. She also endured severe personal losses. Akhmatova's friend Lydia Chukovskaya (1907-96) kept intimate diaries of her conversations with the great poet. First published in the U.S.S.R. in 1987, The Akhmatova Journals offers a rare look into the day-to-day life of Akhmatova.

"I was overwhelmed by Lydia Chukovskaya's sustained conversation with her friend. . . . The unforgettable is on every page." --Bruce Chatwin, London Observer

"[T]he journals record . . . an intellectual friendship between two women whose knowledge of Russian and world literature was breathtakingly large. . . . At times, the Akhmatova-Chukovskaya conversations are like fragments from a Dostoyevsky novel." --Wall Street Journal

"A deeply moving book. . . . Apart from what it tells us about a great poet, it is a detailed and vivid description of the intellectually and imaginatively rich lives of a heroic handful of human beings." --Isaiah Berlin, Times Literary Supplement