In this beautifully-written memoir, Sana Valiulina interweaves her own childhood experiences with a reconstruction of a dramatic period in her father’s life. Her Tatar father (1922-1999) was an enigmatic figure. He was one of millions of Soviet men with an ostensibly unheroic World War II story. Forced into the Red Army’s Volga Tatar Battalion at the age of eighteen, he was soon wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans and forced to enlist in their army instead. At the end of the war he escaped and became an interpreter for the Americans. Only to be accused of collaboration upon his return to Russia and sent to the Gulag for ten years.

Chancing upon a photograph of her father in a Cherbourg museum, Sana Valiulina retraces her father’s fourteen-year odyssey from western Russia to northern France and, via England, back to his homeland. Through the lens of this multi-facetted and layered personal history she expertly manages to discuss the greater historical workings at play. Valiulina has written an eye-opening book on the lasting impact of family trauma and the legacies of political oppression.

A favourite title of the Dutch Foundation For Literature this year!

‘If we want to understand what is happening now on Europe’s eastern border and not descend into political provincialism, we will have to delve into the memories of our Eastern European allies. Valiulina’s book is rich, human and very timely.’ – De Groene Amsterdammer

‘In Where All Roads End Valiulina paints a fragmented, personal and touching, and at the same time well-researched and historical portrait of an exceptional father – harsh and soft at the same time.’ – De Standaard

‘Sana Valiulina’s search for the truth is a matter of principle. She doesn’t only want to get to know her father better, she also cares deeply about the morality of truth, the virtue of honest historiography, and human empathy.’ – RAAM