Will I love The Siege?

I seem to have been in survival mode this year. In January 2025 I found this book, first published in 2002. For me, it was a gripping and inspiring story of the human spirit that soars as it stares death in the face. In 1941 the entire city of Leningrad was blockaded with no way in or out. Rather than try to conquer, the German forces chose to wait while the people slowly starved to death. The book follows one young woman as she tries to keep her child and others alive as anything resembling food gradually disappears. It's a… show more.

When I teach creative writing, I often use this excellent historical novel set in the USSR during WW2 as an example. There are scenes from this book seared into my memory—they are so powerful, visceral, and moving.. Helen Dunmore is able to put the reader in the centre of the most harrowing circumstances, where people are starving, freezing, and dying in the thousands, and yet allow us to care about the individual and feel uplifted by their struggle. In Leningrad, Anna has already lost her mother, who died giving birth to her baby brother, Kolya. During the brutal siege of… show more.

This novel about the siege of Leningrad taught me how it is possible to make readers care deeply about huge historical events, by keeping a close focus on one family, and one young woman in particular. This is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece: in storytelling terms, in characterisation, and in placing these people against the ghastly backdrop of Leningrad in 1941, when Hitler's troops surrounded it and tried to starve the city into surrender. The book is based on meticulous research, but the facts are so deeply embedded that they become part of the wallpaper, leaving the reader to powerfully experience the… show more.