Hope Against Hope

Hope Against Hope is Nadezhda Mandelstam's harrowing account of her life with her husband, Osip Mandelstam, a renowned Russian poet.

The memoir details Osip's arrest, interrogation, and eventual death in a Siberian gulag in 1938, following his satirical poem about Joseph Stalin.

Nadezhda's narrative provides a vital eyewitness account of Stalin's Soviet Union, highlighting the persecution of Russia's literary intelligentsia and her own courageous efforts to preserve her husband's poems and uncover the truth about his death.

The book is also a profoundly inspiring love story that underscores their determination to keep love and art alive in desperate circumstances.