Natan Sharansky

Natan Sharansky is one of the most famous former Soviet Union’s refuseniks and an Israeli politician, author and human rights activist. Prominently involved in Jewish refusenik activities he was arrested by the KGB and spent nine years in jail convicted of treason against the state. Freed in 1986, he settled in Israel and wrote his memoir, Fear No Evil. He also has written The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror and Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy. Gil Troy is a professor of history at McGill University in Montreal and has a residence in Jerusalem. In Never Alone (Public Affairs) Sharansky reveals how spending years in prison, many in harsh solitary confinement, prepared him for a very public life after his release. As an Israeli politician and the head of the Jewish Agency, Sharansky brought extraordinary moral clarity and uncompromising, often uncomfortable, honesty. His story is suffused with reflections from his time as a political prisoner, from his seat at the table as history unfolded in Israel and the Middle East, and from his passionate efforts to unite the Jewish people. Written with frankness, affection, and humor, the book offers us profound insights from a man who embraced the essential human struggle: to find his own voice, his own faith, and the people to whom he could belong. Publishers Weekly praised Never Alone as “a worthy introduction to the life and work of one of the world’s most famous political prisoners.”