Vladimir Azarov grew up and came to maturity during a time in the Soviet Union when penal camps and the secret police were ubiquitous, but the one great truth that he and the world learned from all the great Russian writers, and that he learned in his own life in political exile, is that almost everything can be taken from an individual but his or her story, his or her undying and unyielding sense of self.

No matter what, the self perseveres, even in the most perverse and punishing circumstances. Azarov, in his own plainspoken voice, has composed seven stories about seven lives that are marvellously moving in their seeming simplicity, their actual depth. Seven Lives is Vladimir Azarov’s childhood experiences of Soviet life transformed into a poetic witnessing.