cover image Freedom's Child: A Courageous Teenager's Story of Fleeing His Parents and the Soviet Union to Live in America

Freedom's Child: A Courageous Teenager's Story of Fleeing His Parents and the Soviet Union to Live in America

Walter Polovchak, Kevin Klose. Random House (NY), $17.95 (246pp) ISBN 978-0-394-55926-1

The refusal of 12-year-old Ukranian immigrant Polovchak in 1980 to return permanently to the U.S.S.R. with his parents, after having lived in Chicago for six months, provoked a storm of controversy from his family and authorities in both countries. The case, which was to involve the courts, State Department and Soviet Embassy, Immigration Service, the FBI, KGB and the American Civil Liberties Union, attracted worldwide media attention, most of it favorable to the youngster. In recounting the story, Washington Post former Moscow bureau chief Klose preserves the defector's colloquial style in which he unfavorably compares his former life in the U.S.S.R. with the material advantages and freedoms of the U.S.A. Having waged court battles that lasted until 1985, Polovchak was sworn in as an American citizen a few days after his 18th birthday. His parents have returned to the Ukraine, he remains in Chicago. Photos not seen by PW. Literary Guild alternate; author tour. (March)