Spending nearly her entire writing career under the scrutiny of the Soviet regime, Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) carefully distilled her feelings and protests in her musical poetry, though she also produced compelling prose—particularly in her diary, where she could write without fear of censorship. This collection includes letters to such peers as Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, Osip Mandelstam, and Alexander Blok, annotated and with a substantial introduction by Ronald Meyer. Here too are Akhmatova's series of essays on Alexander Pushkin, Prose About the Poem, miscellaneous autobiographical sketches, and piquant reminiscences of Amadeo Modigliani, Marina Tsvetaeva, and her husband, poet Nikolai Gumilyov.