human resilience explored in The Siege

I love it when a chance second hand book purchase offers an impressive surprise. The author, Helen Dunmore, is a prolific comtemporary English poet, who has also written short stories and chidren's books. This historical novel was inspired by her two years teaching English in Finnland. I was attracted to read about the Leningrad Siege, having visited this amazing city in summer, twenty years ago. The story begins in June, 1941, the summer before Hitler’s armies encircled Leningrad. There is a brief reconstruction of a northern Russian summer where the city people who can, visit their rural dacha's to enjoy the countryside. Soon, normal life is over, children are evacuated out of the city and adults work in building defences to obstruct the advancing Germans. The focus then shifts quickly to one family's struggle to survive the extremes of cold and hunger while the city is expected to starve into extinction. Anna assumes the maternal role for her younger brother, after her educated mother died in childbirth. She does not fully appreciate the writing talent of her dissident father, and cannot develop her artistic talents. But she works tirelessly to unite her father, his long term girlfriend, her younger brother and a medical student lover. The daily challenges to stay warm and spread the tiny bread ration are so extreme, yet believable. It is such confronting reading, but the message of hope is always there...how ordinary people can survive the many levels of forced destruction.