Book cover for The Diary of Lena Mukhina

The Diary of Lena Mukhina

Synopsis

Details

12 February 2015
268 pages
9781447269908
Imprint: Picador

Reviews

Sixteen-year-old Lena Mukhina's diary is to the Siege of Leningrad what Anne Frank's was to Nazi-occupied Amsterdam ... A must read for young adults and their parents everywhere.
Even at the height of the Leningrad Siege, starving and surrounded by death and destruction, Lena Mukhina somehow continued to keep a diary. Her story, though searing, is an inspiration.
The Anne Frank of Leningrad ... Almost unbearably moving ... Her suffering is real and terrible. As we read on, we can feel something important sapping out of her. Call it spirit, if you like, or the optimism of youth. But adversity does not strengthen her; it corrodes her. She gets away, but the best of her, we suspect, she has left behind.
Lena's diary, sustained by emotional stamina and driven by daily drama, describes one of the worst civilian horrors of modern wartime.