About the Author

Edith Sollohub taught herself to type in order to support herself and her sons in their one-room apartment in Paris.

She typed some of her account of her life in Russia in snatched moments, and added to these in later life. The manuscript of The Russian Countess was left to her youngest son and daughter-in-law after her death in 1965, who lovingly deciphered the handwritten notes, edited the text and unearthed photographs to ensure that her wish – that her memoirs might one day be published – be fulfilled.

Reviews

‘A moving and thrilling story, The Russian Countess described a world descending into chaos during war and revolution a century ago. An epic tale of hope, tinged with sadness and suffering, it will keep you gripped until the final page’ (Peter Frankopan, author of Silk Roads)

“Her book is a revelation, and one of the great memoirs from that era.” Antony Beevor, The Sunday Times

“Superbly well written – one finishes reading with the feeling of having been in contact with a wonderful human being.” Review on Amazon.co.uk

‘A moving and thrilling story, The Russian Countess described a world descending into chaos during war and revolution a century ago. An epic tale of hope, tinged with sadness and suffering, it will keep you gripped until the final page’ (Peter Frankopan, author of Silk Roads)

‘Distinguished by sharp observation and a strong memory for visual detail’
(Barbara Heldt, The Times Literary Supplement)

‘Her narrative attains spiritual depth… she had the ability to write vividly and with understanding about all the many people, from very different walks of life, whom she encountered during her journey through post-revolutionary Russia’ (Robert Chandler, British poet and literary translator)  

‘I inhaled it. With echoes of Bunin, Sollohub captures the strange mixture of beauty and terror that was Russia in the first decades of the last century. An iridescent jewel of a book.’ (Douglas Smith, author of Rasputin and Former People: The Last Days of the Russian Aristocracy)

‘An epic and evocative tale of courage and endurance . Edith Sollohub takes us from her privileged life in tsarist Russia through the terror and turmoil of revolution, war, separation from family, imprisonment and a final desperate flight to freedom.’ (Helen Rappaport, author of Caught in the Revolution and Victoria Letters)