Winner of Russia's most prestigious literary prize in 2009, this novel portrays a group of resilient, authentic women who confront crushing hardship with dignity throughout their lives. Through solidarity and the quiet power of female friendship, they manage to hold onto love for life itself.
Antonina is a young, innocent factory worker in Stalin's Russia of the early 1960s. When she becomes pregnant, the man she loves abandons her. The state assigns her an apartment shared with three elderly women who, though hardened by a lifetime of suffering, prove willing to help—caring for her daughter Sjuzanna, who does not speak but understands everything.
The child does not attend school. Her mother and the "grandmothers" fear she will be stigmatized or placed in some special institution. These three older women raise Sjuzanna with love and passion, overseeing her education through reading and stories drawn from life itself, never depriving her of experiences they consider vital. They even teach her French. When Antonina falls gravely ill, they tend to her with maternal devotion and personal sacrifice.
A Woman's Time is a novel suffused with values and ideals and courage—but also a meditation on history itself. Not history as mere chronology, but as felt through the emotions that events provoke and the memory that lives on in those who endured them.