Expressing the collective grief for the thousands vanished under Josef Stalin's regime, "Requiem" chronicles Akhmatova's seventeen-month wait for news of her imprisoned son's fate, while "Poem without a Hero" chronicles the transformation of vibrant St. Petersburg into oppressive Leningrad and the pain of those left behind.

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) is an iconic figure of twentieth-century Russian literature and one of her era's great poets. Her work has been translated into many languages.