Oh boy, this is going to be hard to live up to! LOL.
But I don't think you guys will be disappointed, because although this is not a comprehensive book of diaries where every entry is included as it was originally going to be, I feel that the end result turned out even better than that. I carefully chose the most interesting, insightful and representative parts of the diaries- ones that I felt would give the reader the best idea of what was happening in Olga's life, as well as her mind, at the time. The inclusion of her letters, which are a lot more descriptive than the diaries and are a significant contrast with the former, very effectively supplement the diary entries IMO. And of course interweaving observations of others who were around Olga at the time, give us yet another level of insight.
I really think that this book may be the best way to get to "know" Olga and get the feel of the climate she was living in at the time without actually being there.
It may sound kind of silly, but after working on these diaries and letters for months on end, which eventually stretched out into years (on and off), I started to feel like I was really getting to know Olga. And even though of course the diaries don't reveal all that much at first glance, taken altogether these documents really allow you to read between the lines, if you will.
It was really quite an experience, because before this project I saw Olga more as another abstract figure from history, but somewhere along the way I really started to feel and see her as a real person. Not sure if this makes sense. But this is my hope for this book, for the reader to start to "feel" her as a real person, a quite ordinary person even, which is what she was. It sounds like a strange thing to say but I feel that in way Olga's mere ordinariness, while she is expected to be extraordinary somehow, is what makes her special and even interesting.