Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, a Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope
In fall 1984, Lisa Paul, a young American college student, lived in Moscow and worked as a nanny. Interested in taking Russian-language lessons, she connected with Inna Kitrosskaya Meiman, a Soviet Jewish dissident. The friendship between the two deepened during the weekly tutoring sessions, and as Lisa learned more about Inna and her husband and met Inna�s friends, her eyes were opened to the harsh realities of the Moscow regime. Those were made more evident when Inna revealed that for years she had been denied an exit visa to receive medical treatment for her reoccurring malignant cancer. Determined to help her friend, Lisa returned to the U.S. and began contacting various media outlets and political leaders on Inna�s behalf, until her life-saving campaign culminated with a three-week hunger strike and press conference. Through these efforts and Inna�s various struggles, Lisa also experienced an evolving personal faith and sense of hope. Her inspiring memoir captures a tumultuous period of history as well as the resilience of the human spirit, even against seemingly overwhelming odds. --Leah Strauss