Moscow, 1939. The great author Isaac Babel is spending his last days in the infamous Lubyanka prison, forbiden to write. His final works have been consigned to the young archivist Pavel Dubrow, who must destroy them. But Pavel makes a reckless decision in the face of a vast bureaucracy of evil: he will save the stories of the writer he so admires, whatever the cost...
"Quietly devastating...Captures the stark chill of totalitarianism better than anything since 1984"
--Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl--
"Extraordinary...The writing is wonderful in its wisful rendition of beauty, emotion, tyranny: fading, unchanged russia and the man-made madness of the Soviet Union"
--The Times--