Please Live

The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me

Lana Estemirova

$49.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

John Murray Publishers Ltd
30 September 2025

Memoirs; Human rights; Armed conflict

A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

'Powerful . . .

a coming-of-age story with a twist' Guardian

'Heart-wrenching . . . We need accounts like this haunting, compelling book' Telegraph

'A profound and moving tribute . . . It is Lana's inside perspective on what it was like to grow up within this society that makes this such a unique and powerful book' Sunday Times

'Haunting' Radio Times

'Please live' were the last words fifteen-year-old Lana said to her mother.

Shortly afterwards Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped outside their apartment block in Grozny, Chechnya. On 15th July 2009, she was murdered for telling the truth.

A mountainous sliver of land which creates a natural boundary between Europe and Asia, for centuries Chechnya had been a sharp bone in Russia's throat. Three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, frustrated by the continued presence of the independence movement within Chechnya, Russia invaded.

It was a war of extraordinary brutality. It turned Lana's mother, Natalia Estemirova, from a teacher into a human rights investigator. She became a dedicated member of Memorial, intent on exposing the kidnappings, bombings, torture and murders committed by Russian forces and Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen President. Natalia Estemirova's life, assassination, and the impunity that followed it, tell the story of Putin's Russia.

This is Lana's story of growing up in a war. Of the intense bond between a mother and daughter, desperate to be together even though it was so much safer for Lana to live elsewhere, often for months at a time. It is a book both about being brave and about being ordinary in extraordinary times. It's the fulfilment of a promise Lana made at her mother's grave.

By: Lana Estemirova
Imprint: John Murray Publishers Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781399811620
ISBN 10: 1399811622
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 30 September 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Lana Estemirova is Chechen, 28 years-old and works for the Justice for Journalists Foundation (JFJ), a London-based charity which fights against attacks on the media. Formerly a freelance journalist for the Guardian and the Moscow Times, Lana studied International Relations at the London School of Economics. She currently lives in Lisbon.