Olga's Story

With an atmosphere and setting as rich as Dr Zhivago and with a story as compelling as White Mughals, this is the moving account of a woman's life lived at the heart of the twentieth century.

Stephanie Williams's Olga's Story is the moving account of a woman's life lived at the heart of the twentieth century. 
 
Olga Yunter was born in July 1900 in a remote frontier post in southern Siberia. A girlhood played out against the backdrop of the China trade changed forever, when, at seventeen, Olga joined her brothers in their fight against the Bolsheviks. Death and retribution followed. Olga was forced to flee to China, rubies sewn into her petticoats. Twice more Olga would be forced to leave everything behind - first to escape Mao's Communists, and again when Japan invaded China during World War II. 
 
From the comfort of her family to the terror of revolution, war and exile, Olga's Story is the heartbreaking tale of the author's grandmother. 
 
'A heartbreaking story of disaster and survival through some of the worst conflicts and upheavals of our benighted age . . . moving and brilliant' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'A gripping and authentic narrative of a life that was at once ordinary and remarkable' TLS 
 
Stephanie Williams has spent the last ten years piecing together her grandmother's story. A journalist and author of two works of non-fiction she lives in London.

Stephanie Williams has spent the last ten years piecing together her grandmother's story. A journalist and author of two works of non-fiction she lives in London.

Olga Yunter was born in July 1900 in a remote frontier post in southern Siberia. A girlhood played out against the backdrop of the China trade changed forever, when, at seventeen, Olga joined her brothers in their fight against the Bolsheviks. Death and retribution followed. Olga was forced to flee to China, rubies sewn into her petticoats. Twice more Olga would be forced to leave everything behind - first to escape Mao's Communists, and again when Japan invaded China during World War II. 
 
From the comfort of her family to the terror of revolution, war and exile, Olga's Story is the heartbreaking tale of the author's grandmother.

Stephanie Williams

The Extraordinary Stories of the Men who Governed the British Empire

'May God forgive us for our sorry deeds and for our glorious intentions' 
 
Who were the men governing the Empire in the nineteenth century? 
How were they chosen and controlled? Were they sane or mad? 
And why did they do it? 
 
From Fiji to the Falkland Islands, from Malaysia to Australia and South Africa, from Lagos to Ottawa, ordinary British men and women, with no training, were dispatched to strange places, among strange people and faced unimaginable conditions. Some started wars. Others fought disease, injustice and slavery. Many died or went mad. Running the Show, drawing on vast unpublished sources, reveals the day-today lives, griefs and triumphs of governors at the height of the British Empire as they struggled to make sense of their charges and, frequently, themselves.

Running the Show

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