Ms Laber is a standing credit to the disinterested approach.

ECONOMIST: Human rights

Like many of the Soviet Jewish dissidents she befriended, Ms Laber feels ambivalent about the land where her ancestors suffered pogroms: passionate about its literature, horrified by its cruelty.

ECONOMIST: Human rights

In an honest, moving and simple memoir which shows self-knowledge without self-indulgence, Ms Laber describes her background as the daughter of a self-made Russian-Jewish entrepreneur in New York who discouraged her fascination with Russian culture.

ECONOMIST: Human rights