An epic, moving tale of exile, home, and hope for change
In pre-Revolutionary Russia, Geoffrey Elliott's grandfather, David, was taken from rural exile in Bessarabia to the brutality of an Irkutsk prison for his involvement with a group of anti-government activists. Here he met Manya, the love of his life, and fled with her across Europe to England, where he joined London's Russian tobacco trade.
Unable to settle and homesick, the family decide to return to Manya's native Siberia, and so, amidst the backdrop of the 1917 Revolution, Bolshevik atrocities and unparalleled historic upheaval, they began an epic return journey - only to find their lives in danger because of David's Pre-Revolutionary Menshevik leanings, and forced to flee once more through Asia and the Mediterranean to the alien safety of London.
Told with great affection, Geoffrey Elliott's compelling history of his extraordinary family, is an epic and very human tale of exile, home, and hope for change, that finds great emotional resonance in contemporary issues of European migration and immigration.