1936 was the beginning of the one of the bloodiest Stalinist purges in Bolshevik history. That very year, Sergei Prokofiev chose to go back to live in the USSR with his family. It was also then that he wrote and composed Peter and the Wolf, his celebrated children’s story set to music. Convinced that his fame would protect him from the Party cadres, the Russian Mozart walked right into the lion’s den. He wouldn’t escape it alive.
In this cruelly droll novel, the author imagines the tragic circumstances and consequences of this fateful decision, allowing us to relive the history of the 20th century through the destiny of one artist. From the inspiring, cosmopolitan Paris of Poulenc and Nabokov, to the war and the implacable Soviet system, the book also paints a fascinating portrait of a brilliant composer who was willing to walk through the fires of hell in order to approach divine inspiration. And of the free-spirited woman who paid a heavy price for her unwavering love and devotion. They cost her both her career and her life, because Lina, who was arrested during the Great Purges of 1948, was sentenced to 20 years in a gulag in Siberia. And finally, it depicts the arduous path between good and evil that every artist must travel.

An inspired saga about the troubled life of the composer Prokofiev.