Only One Year

In this remarkable memoir, Svetlana Alliluyeva reveals her struggle to break completely from the world of Communism and the legacy of her notorious father —Joseph Stalin— by defecting from the USSR to the United States. Only One Year begins on December 19, 1966, as Alliluyeva leaves Russia for India, on a one-month visa, in the custody of a staff member of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It ends on December 19, 1967, in Princeton, New Jersey, as she and two American friends toast to her new life. Why would a woman flee the only world she has ever known? Brutally honest and moving, Only One Year is the personal story of a dictator’s daughter who, trapped behind the Iron Curtain, made the drastic decision to defect. And now—nearly fifty years after its initial publication—Alliluyeva’s compelling narrative of suffering, sacrifice, and subterfuge becomes all the more poignant because her escape ultimately did not bring her the freedom she so desperately sought.