The Siege

Leningrad, September 1941. Hitler orders the German forces to surround the city at the start of the most dangerous, desperate winter in its history. For two pairs of lovers - Anna and Andrei, Anna's novelist father and banned actress Marina - the siege becomes a battle for survival.

A Tolstoyan epic of love and war; life and death...she writes beautifully

Remarkable, affecting...there are few more interesting stories than this; and few writers who could have told it better

Utterly convincing. A deeply moving account of two love stories in terrible circumstances. The story of their struggle to survive appears simple, as all great literature should...A world-class novel

Literary writing of the highest order set against a background of suffering so intimately reconstructed it is hard to believe that Dunmore was not there

A remarkable parable of human survival against the odds

In this wise, humane and beautifully written novel she has written a masterpiece

A searing historical novel. Dunmore vividly evokes the unbelievable cold, privations and violence as people struggle to survive...an extraordinary description of the horrors of the time

An important as well as a thrilling work of art

A moving and powerful novel in which Dunmore employs all her celebrated descriptive and narrative skills...beautiful

A harrowing, urgent narrative of cold, starvation and the battle to survive

Helen Dunmore was an award-winning novelist, children's author and poet. She published twelve novels including Zennor in Darkness , which won the McKitterick Prize; Burning Bright; A Spell of Winter, which won the inaugural Orange Prize in 1996; Talking to the Dead; Your Blue-Eyed Boy; With Your Crooked Heart; The Siege, which was shortlisted for the 2001 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction 2002; Mourning Ruby and House of Orphans. She was posthumously awarded the Costa 2017 prize for her poetry collection Inside the Wave.