The Sky Wept Fire: My Life as a Chechen Freedom Fighter

(Paperback)

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On the eve of the first Chechen war, Mikail Eldin was a young and naive arts journalist. By the end of the second war, he had become a battle-hardened war reporter and mountain partisan who had endured torture and imprisonment in a concentration camp. His compelling memoir traces the unfolding of the conflict from day one, with vivid scenes right from the heart of the war.

The Sky Wept Fire presents a unique glimpse into the lives of the Chechen resistance, providing testimony of great historical value. Yet it is not merely the story of the battle for Chechnya: this is the story of the battle within the heart, the struggle to conquer fear, hold on to faith and preserve one's humanity.

Reviews

The descriptions of seeing the first surreal signs of war are detailed, acute, and horrifying. Alongside the grit runs a poetry of introspection... Powerful, lyrical and disturbing -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *
[This] is going to be a 21st century classic about war and conflict. In its humanity and honest, it is unlikely to be surpassed. Anna Gunin deserves high praise for her excellent translation - she wove the mood music of the Russian original into smooth English * Tribune *
Expertly translated... an unflinching portrait of an oppressed people and a brutal and little-understood battlefront -- Malcolm Forbes * National *
Deeply harrowing and searingly honest... A heartfelt, passionate story * New Internationalist *
The Sky Wept Fire has a haunting and defiant lyricism * Russia Beyond the Headlines *
Anna Gunin captures the elegiac tone of Eldin's prose... [It] vividly conveys the passions and almost inconceivable suffering that accompanied the latest Russo-Chechen conflicts... Riveting [and] lyrical -- Anna Brodsky * TLS *
A remarkable work of life-writing and a brilliantly rendered translation * Oxonian Review *

Author Bio

Mikail Eldin worked as a journalist, before taking up arms himself in the conflict with Russia. He eventually left Chechnya in fear for his life and secured political asylum in Norway, where he now lives. Anna Gunin is a translator who read Russian at Bristol University. She has translated plays for the Royal Court, co-translated a film, and her translations of short stories and poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies. Her translation of German Sadulaev's novel I am a Chechen! is published by Harvill Secker.