The book by Norwegian writer and Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset (1882–1949) tells the story of the dramatic events associated with her flight from occupied Norway in 1940 to neutral Sweden, and from there, through Russia and Japan, to the United States. The writer’s impressions are varied, sometimes unexpected and shocking, especially those associated with a two-week stay in pre-war Russia. The book was written, as they say, in hot pursuit and was first published in the USA in 1942, in Norway in 1945. Moreover, her fate is not without drama. The ironic, and even sharply negative attitude towards Soviet reality caused a protest in Soviet official circles; the Soviet embassy in Norway regarded this book as slander against Russia, an “unfriendly step”, and demanded that it be withdrawn from sale. The book was published in Norway only four years later, after the death of the writer, in 1949.