Nina Lugovskaya was a Moscow teenager who lived under Stalin in the 1930's. Her diaries, which have recently been discovered in KGB files, are being likened to those of Anne Frank. There's a tragic reason for their preservation. When Stalin's secret police ransacked Nina's home and discovered the journals, they were deemed to be evidence enough to convict her whole family of treason and they were all sent to a Siberian gulag for seven years.
Nina's diaries have just been published in English and the acclaimed children's writer Anne Fine joins Jenni to discuss this powerful story. Anne's new novel, The Road of Bones, is also set in a totalitarian state, and explores children's experiences of censorship and repression.
'I want to live:The Diary of a Young Girl in Stalin's Russia' by Nina Lugovskaya is published by Doubleday on 6th July, ISBN 9780385608718. 'The Road of Bones' by Anne Fine is also published by Doubleday, ISBN 9780385610360.
