Mila and Mervusya - Mervyn Matthews

The remarkable - and true - story of love opposed by political ideology. When translator Mervyn Matthews refused to be recruited by the KGB in the 1960s he found himself expelled from Russia and divided by the Iron Curtain from his Russian fiancee Mila Bibikova. Caught up in the Cold War, isolated by the indifference of the Foreign Office and the vindictiveness of the KGB, Matthews laboured for five years to bring Mila to the West.

This is a story of KGB operatives, Oxbridge academics with intelligence connections, shady spies in Berlin, the Gerald Brooke affair, illegal entry into the Soviet Union and - finally - success through the infamous Kroger exchange. A touching story of ordinary people and the power of love, Mila and Mervusya also holds a mirror to Cold War politics.

Mervyn Matthews, translator, writer and retired academic, is the author of a number of books about Russia.