Shcharansky: 2hero of Our Time

Released from a Soviet prison this past February in an East-West ""spy swap,'' although he had never been a spy, Russian dissident Anatol Shcharansky was reunited with his wife in Israel, ending a nine-year ordeal. His only crime had been campaigning on behalf of Soviet Jews like himself for exit visas and defending Jews' religious expression. Probably the fullest account to date of the refuseniks, their struggle in the U.S.S.R., and their campaigning in the West, this day-by-day log of setbacks, trials, arrests and escapes shows that the Soviet bureaucracy still views the crushing of the Jewish movement as a priority. Gilbert's stunning re-creation of Shcharansky's 1978 mock-trial is as memorable as Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Shcharansky's letters from prison to his wife and family overflow with faith, determination, courage and resilience. Gilbert wrote The Holocaust and The Jews of Hope. 25,000 first printing. (May 30)