Granta Books
Available: 09/15/07
6 x 9.20 · 368 pages
978-1-86207-971-7 CDN $29.95 · pb

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Red Princess

A Revolutionary Life

Sofka Zinovieff

In 1907 the author’s grandmother, Princess Sophy (Sofka) Dolgorouky, was born in St. Petersburg 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 bravely defended Jewish prisoners.

This affectionate portrait of the “red princess” uses letters, diaries and interviews to explore the role Communism played in Sophy’s life choices and to explore the author’s own Russian roots.

“A union of comedy and tragedy infused with the heady romance of a vanished Russia … Red Princess is a small memorial to all the lives dislodged by the shifting sands of modern history.” (Guardian)

“Red Princess delights on several levels: as a detective story, biography, family saga, with glimpses of high society in Russia and Britain, and vivid descriptions of the individual tragedies and desperate struggles for survival of those swept up in the storms of twentieth-century history … A convincing portrait.” (Times Literary Supplement)

“Funny, honest, searing and tragic—a fascinating insight into a world where fate, war and human cruelty changed lives with a sudden, reckless indifference.” (Times)

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.