{"product_id":"9781399811620","title":"Please Live : The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me by Lana Estemirova","description":"A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'Powerful . . .  a coming-of-age story with a twist' Guardian'Heart-wrenching . . . We need accounts like this haunting, compelling book' Telegraph'A profound and moving tribute . . . It is Lana's inside perspective on what it was like to grow up within this society that makes this such a unique and powerful book' Sunday Times'Wonderfully brave, beautifully written and utterly authentic' TLS'Haunting' Radio Times'Please live' were the last words fifteen-year-old Lana said to her mother.  Shortly afterwards Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped outside their apartment block in Grozny, Chechnya. On 15th July 2009, she was murdered for telling the truth. A mountainous sliver of land which creates a natural boundary between Europe and Asia, for centuries Chechnya had been a sharp bone in Russia's throat. Three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, frustrated by the continued presence of the independence movement within Chechnya, Russia invaded.   It was a war of extraordinary brutality. It turned Lana's mother, Natalia Estemirova, from a teacher into a human rights investigator. She became a dedicated member of Memorial, intent on exposing the kidnappings, bombings, torture and murders committed by Russian forces and Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen President. Natalia Estemirova's life, assassination, and the impunity that followed it, tell the story of Putin's Russia. This is Lana's story of growing up in a war. Of the intense bond between a mother and daughter, desperate to be together even though it was so much safer for Lana to live elsewhere, often for months at a time. It is a book both about being brave and about being ordinary in extraordinary times. It's the fulfilment of a promise Lana made at her mother's grave.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55206169051509,"sku":"9781399811620","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781399811620_65bf0a9e-2210-4b5d-8d66-4c69fd1cb971.jpg?v=1748100201","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9781399811620","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}