The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad
Published by: Hodder & Stoughton
War throws into sharp relief what’s important to us. It forces us to decide what we save and what we sacrifice. Simon Parkin takes us to the darkest days of the Nazi siege of Leningrad, where a group of botanists faced a terrible dilemma. Having amassed the world’s greatest seed bank in the hope of ending famine for all humans one day, they now guarded their vast stash of nutritious specimens at the heart of a city that was starving to death. Artfully told, this is a beautiful and harrowing tale of science, politics and principle in times of war.
Orwell Prize for Political Writing panel
