The year after the release of Carola’s novel Andrej, about Lev Tolstoy’s son, she unexpectedly received a letter from Andreys’, for her unknown, grandson in Moscow. An article about the death of his father, also unknown to Carola, was attached to the letter as well.
From the article, she understood that Ilja left the Soviet as a twenty-one year old to live in exile in the United States. But why, Carola wondered, had the son – and without a word for explanation – sent the her this article? How much did he really, in view of the iron curtain, think about his father’s loss at three years of age? And Ilja, she thought, had been abandoned by his father, Andrej, at almost the same age. What are the forces that control our choices? she asked herself. And how much is it possible for us to decide our destiny ourselves?
Strange occasions caused Carola, just a year later, to follow Ilja’s very dramatic living, from the turmoil of the Soviet Union to his lifelong exile in the American upper class. Carola has chosen to call this novel With a Name like Mine – because it’s exactly what it is.
With a Name like Mine, was awarded the Albert Bonniers Prize and the Övralid Award.