Vladimir Azarov grew up and came to maturity during a time in the Soviet
Union when penal camps and the secret police were ubiquitous, but the
one great truth that he and the world learned from all the great Russian
writers, and that he learned in his own life in political exile, is that
almost everything can be taken from an individual but his or her story,
his or her undying and unyielding sense of self. No matter what, the
self perseveres, even in the most perverse and punishing circumstances.
Azarov, in his own plainspoken voice, has composed seven stories about
seven lives that are marvelously moving in their seeming simplicity,
their actual depth. Seven Lives is Vladimir Azarov's childhood
experiences of Soviet life transformed into a poetic witnessing.