Irina Ratushinskaya spent four years in a Soviet labour camp after receiving the longest sentence given to a woman on political grounds since the days of Stalin. Her 'crime' was her poetry. Since leaving the Soviet Union in 1986 and being stripped of Soviet citizenship she has lived in London with her husband Igor Geraschenko. She is the author of Grey is the Colour of Hope and ln the Beginning.
She says: 'Our generation in the Soviet Union was lucky. For us the borders between what should be done and what should not be done were clear: it was a kind of "black and white" society. We were forced to choose from the very beginning. What was the choice? Either to save our personalities, our souls, and give up our bodies to be destroyed, or to do the opposite.' The author speaks of her experiences in the labour camps, of overcoming fear and of finding faith - in a society which tried to abolish God.
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