Célestin, a complex French adventuresome humanist, is raising his nine-year-old daughter after his beloved wife, the girl’s mother, died at childbirth. Their journey, which begins as an adventure, acquires a life-changing seriousness in Leningrad in 1980—the mission to free Olya Naratovna, a Russian-Tatar political poet, imprisoned by the Soviet authorities. Her beauty is enhanced by mental strength and depth of soul.
