One of the 50 best memoirs and biographies of all time by the New York Times and Goodreads. A poignant chronicle of an unimaginable loss and a long painful recovery.We open the book and a wave covers us: 9 meters high, at a speed of 40 km per hour, it takes us 3 kilometers inland. And from there, deep into the author's despair: on Sunday morning, December 26, 2004, during the tsunami on the southeast coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deranyagala lost her parents, husband and two sons, and she miraculously survived. In this courageous and honest book of memoirs, she describes the difficult days after the tragedy and the long journey since then: the first months of confrontation with a reality that can neither be accepted nor denied | then years of slow, reluctant healing, when it is already possible to resurrect in memory the former joyful and full life - a settled and comfortable house in London, the birth of children, a meeting with a future husband at the university, childhood in Colombo. Together with the narrator, we always have to balance on the verge between an unbearable reminder of the loss and the desire to keep our favorite images in our souls.Going through the memories, Sonali finds in them not the bitterness of loss, but a source of warmth and light that helps to create and save images of loved ones. With loss comes rebirth. An amazing story - subtle and at the same time unusually strong.Published in Russian for the first time.