A definitive guide on frontend development with Angular from design to deployment Key Features *Develop web applications from scratch using Angular and TypeScript *Explore reactive programming principles and RxJS to develop and test apps easily *Study continuous integration and deployment on the AWS cloud Book Description If you have been burnt by unreliable JavaScript frameworks before, you will be amazed by the maturity of the Angular platform. Angular enables you to build fast, efficient, and real-world web apps. In this Learning Path, you'll learn Angular and to deliver high-quality and production-grade Angular apps from design to deployment. You will begin by creating a simple fitness app, using the building blocks of Angular, and make your final app, Personal Trainer, by morphing the workout app into a full-fledged personal workout builder and runner with an advanced directive building - the most fundamental and powerful feature of Angular. You will learn the different ways of architecting Angular applications using RxJS, and some of the patterns that are involved in it. Later you’ll be introduced to the router-first architecture, a seven-step approach to designing and developing mid-to-large line-of-business apps, along with popular recipes. By the end of this book, you will be familiar with the scope of web development using Angular, Swagger, and Docker, learning patterns and practices to be successful as an individual developer on the web or as a team in the Enterprise. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: *Angular 6 by Example by Chandermani Arora, Kevin Hennessy *Architecting Angular Applications with Redux, RxJS, and NgRx by Christoffer Noring *Angular 6 for Enterprise-Ready Web Applications by Doguhan Uluca What you will learn *Develop web applications from scratch using Angular and TypeScript *Explore reactive programming principles, RxJS to develop and test apps efficiently *Study continuous integration and deployment your Angular app on the AWS cloud Who this book is for If you're a JavaScript or frontend developer looking to gain comprehensive experience of using Angular for end-to-end enterprise-ready applications, this Learning Path is for you.

Demystify the complexity of machine learning techniques and create evolving, clever solutions to solve your problems Key Features *Master supervised, unsupervised, and semi-supervised ML algorithms and their implementation *Build deep learning models for object detection, image classification, similarity learning, and more *Build, deploy, and scale end-to-end deep neural network models in a production environment Book Description This Learning Path is your complete guide to quickly getting to grips with popular machine learning algorithms. You'll be introduced to the most widely used algorithms in supervised, unsupervised, and semi-supervised machine learning, and learn how to use them in the best possible manner. Ranging from Bayesian models to the MCMC algorithm to Hidden Markov models, this Learning Path will teach you how to extract features from your dataset and perform dimensionality reduction by making use of Python-based libraries. You'll bring the use of TensorFlow and Keras to build deep learning models, using concepts such as transfer learning, generative adversarial networks, and deep reinforcement learning. Next, you'll learn the advanced features of TensorFlow1.x, such as distributed TensorFlow with TF clusters, deploy production models with TensorFlow Serving. You'll implement different techniques related to object classification, object detection, image segmentation, and more. By the end of this Learning Path, you'll have obtained in-depth knowledge of TensorFlow, making you the go-to person for solving artificial intelligence problems This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: *Mastering Machine Learning Algorithms by Giuseppe Bonaccorso *Mastering TensorFlow 1.x by Armando Fandango *Deep Learning for Computer Vision by Rajalingappaa Shanmugamani What you will learn *Explore how an ML model can be trained, optimized, and evaluated *Work with Autoencoders and Generative Adversarial Networks *Explore the most important Reinforcement Learning techniques *Build end-to-end deep learning (CNN, RNN, and Autoencoders) models Who this book is for This Learning Path is for data scientists, machine learning engineers, artificial intelligence engineers who want to delve into complex machine learning algorithms, calibrate models, and improve the predictions of the trained model. You will encounter the advanced intricacies and complex use cases of deep learning and AI. A basic knowledge of programming in Python and some understanding of machine learning concepts are required to get the best out of this Learning Path.

Design, develop, and master efficient Power BI solutions for impactful business insights Key Features *Get to grips with the fundamentals of Microsoft Power BI *Combine data from multiple sources, create visuals, and publish reports across platforms *Understand Power BI concepts with real-world use cases Book Description Microsoft Power BI Complete Reference Guide gets you started with business intelligence by showing you how to install the Power BI toolset, design effective data models, and build basic dashboards and visualizations that make your data come to life. In this Learning Path, you will learn to create powerful interactive reports by visualizing your data and learn visualization styles, tips and tricks to bring your data to life. You will be able to administer your organization's Power BI environment to create and share dashboards. You will also be able to streamline deployment by implementing security and regular data refreshes. Next, you will delve deeper into the nuances of Power BI and handling projects. You will get acquainted with planning a Power BI project, development, and distribution of content, and deployment. You will learn to connect and extract data from various sources to create robust datasets, reports, and dashboards. Additionally, you will learn how to format reports and apply custom visuals, animation and analytics to further refine your data. By the end of this Learning Path, you will learn to implement the various Power BI tools such as on-premises gateway together along with staging and securely distributing content via apps. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: *Microsoft Power BI Quick Start Guide by Devin Knight et al. *Mastering Microsoft Power BI by Brett Powell What you will learn *Connect to data sources using both import and DirectQuery options *Leverage built-in and custom visuals to design effective reports *Administer a Power BI cloud tenant for your organization *Deploy your Power BI Desktop files into the Power BI Report Server *Build efficient data retrieval and transformation processes Who this book is for Microsoft Power BI Complete Reference Guide is for those who want to learn and use the Power BI features to extract maximum information and make intelligent decisions that boost their business. If you have a basic understanding of BI concepts and want to learn how to apply them using Microsoft Power BI, then Learning Path is for you. It consists of real-world examples on Power BI and goes deep into the technical issues, covers additional protocols, and much more.

Understand, explore, and effectively present data using the powerful data visualization techniques of Python Key Features *Use the power of Pandas and Matplotlib to easily solve data mining issues *Understand the basics of statistics to build powerful predictive data models *Grasp data mining concepts with helpful use-cases and examples Book Description Data mining, or parsing the data to extract useful insights, is a niche skill that can transform your career as a data scientist Python is a flexible programming language that is equipped with a strong suite of libraries and toolkits, and gives you the perfect platform to sift through your data and mine the insights you seek. This Learning Path is designed to familiarize you with the Python libraries and the underlying statistics that you need to get comfortable with data mining. You will learn how to use Pandas, Python's popular library to analyze different kinds of data, and leverage the power of Matplotlib to generate appealing and impressive visualizations for the insights you have derived. You will also explore different machine learning techniques and statistics that enable you to build powerful predictive models. By the end of this Learning Path, you will have the perfect foundation to take your data mining skills to the next level and set yourself on the path to become a sought-after data science professional. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: *Statistics for Machine Learning by Pratap Dangeti *Matplotlib 2.x By Example by Allen Yu, Claire Chung, Aldrin Yim *Pandas Cookbook by Theodore Petrou What you will learn *Understand the statistical fundamentals to build data models *Split data into independent groups *Apply aggregations and transformations to each group *Create impressive data visualizations *Prepare your data and design models *Clean up data to ease data analysis and visualization *Create insightful visualizations with Matplotlib and Seaborn *Customize the model to suit your own predictive goals Who this book is for If you want to learn how to use the many libraries of Python to extract impactful information from your data and present it as engaging visuals, then this is the ideal Learning Path for you. Some basic knowledge of Python is enough to get started with this Learning Path.

Build powerful data analytics applications with this business intelligence tool and overcome all your business challenges Key Features *Master time-saving techniques and make your QlikView development more efficient *Perform geographical analysis and sentiment analysis in your QlikView applications *Explore advanced QlikView techniques, tips, and tricks to deliver complex business requirements Book Description QlikView is one of the most flexible and powerful business intelligence platforms around, and if you want to transform data into insights, it is one of the best options you have at hand. Use this Learning Path, to explore the many features of QlikView to realize the potential of your data and present it as impactful and engaging visualizations. Each chapter in this Learning Path starts with an understanding of a business requirement and its associated data model and then helps you create insightful analysis and data visualizations around it. You will look at problems that you might encounter while visualizing complex data insights using QlikView, and learn how to troubleshoot these and other not-so-common errors. This Learning Path contains real-world examples from a variety of business domains, such as sales, finance, marketing, and human resources. With all the knowledge that you gain from this Learning Path, you will have all the experience you need to implement your next QlikView project like a pro. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: *QlikView for Developers by Miguel ?ngel García, Barry Harmsen *Mastering QlikView by Stephen Redmond *Mastering QlikView Data Visualization by Karl Pover What you will learn *Deliver common business requirements using advanced techniques *Load data from disparate sources to build associative data models *Understand when to apply more advanced data visualization *Utilize the built-in aggregation functions for complex calculations *Build a data architecture that supports scalable QlikView deployments *Troubleshoot common data visualization errors in QlikView *Protect your QlikView applications and data Who this book is for This Learning Path is designed for developers who want to go beyond their technical knowledge of QlikView and understand how to create analysis and data visualizations that solve real business needs. To grasp the concepts explained in this Learning Path, you should have a basic understanding of the common QlikView functions and some hands-on experience with the tool.

Conquer complex and interesting programming challenges by building robust and concurrent applications with caches, cryptography, and parallel programming. Key Features * Understand how to use .NET frameworks like the Task Parallel Library (TPL)and CryptoAPI * Develop a containerized application based on microservices architecture * Gain insights into memory management techniques in .NET Core Book Description This Learning Path shows you how to create high performing applications and solve programming challenges using a wide range of C# features. You’ll begin by learning how to identify the bottlenecks in writing programs, highlight common performance pitfalls, and apply strategies to detect and resolve these issues early. You'll also study the importance of micro-services architecture for building fast applications and implementing resiliency and security in .NET Core. Then, you'll study the importance of defining and testing boundaries, abstracting away third-party code, and working with different types of test double, such as spies, mocks, and fakes. In addition to describing programming trade-offs, this Learning Path will also help you build a useful toolkit of techniques, including value caching, statistical analysis, and geometric algorithms. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: * C# 7 and .NET Core 2.0 High Performance by Ovais Mehboob Ahmed Khan * Practical Test-Driven Development using C# 7 by John Callaway, Clayton Hunt * The Modern C# Challenge by Rod Stephens What you will learn * Measure application performance using BenchmarkDotNet * Leverage the Task Parallel Library (TPL) and Parallel Language Integrated Query (PLINQ)library to perform asynchronous operations * Modify a legacy application to make it testable * Use LINQ and PLINQ to search directories for files matching patterns * Find areas of polygons using geometric operations * Randomize arrays and lists with extension methods * Use cryptographic techniques to encrypt and decrypt strings and files Who this book is for If you want to improve the speed of your code and optimize the performance of your applications, or are simply looking for a practical resource on test driven development, this is the ideal Learning Path for you. Some familiarity with C# and .NET will be beneficial.

Harness the power of Python objects and data structures to implement algorithms for analyzing your data and efficiently extracting information Key Features * Turn your designs into working software by learning the Python syntax * Write robust code with a solid understanding of Python data structures * Understand when to use the functional or the OOP approach Book Description This Learning Path helps you get comfortable with the world of Python. It starts with a thorough and practical introduction to Python. You’ll quickly start writing programs, building websites, and working with data by harnessing Python's renowned data science libraries. With the power of linked lists, binary searches, and sorting algorithms, you'll easily create complex data structures, such as graphs, stacks, and queues. After understanding cooperative inheritance, you'll expertly raise, handle, and manipulate exceptions. You will effortlessly integrate the object-oriented and not-so-object-oriented aspects of Python, and create maintainable applications using higher level design patterns. Once you’ve covered core topics, you’ll understand the joy of unit testing and just how easy it is to create unit tests. By the end of this Learning Path, you will have built components that are easy to understand, debug, and can be used across different applications. This Learning Path includes content from the following Packt products: * Learn Python Programming - Second Edition by Fabrizio Romano * Python Data Structures and Algorithms by Benjamin Baka * Python 3 Object-Oriented Programming by Dusty Phillips What you will learn * Use data structures and control flow to write code * Use functions to bundle together a sequence of instructions * Implement objects in Python by creating classes and defining methods * Design public interfaces using abstraction, encapsulation and information hiding * Raise, define, and manipulate exceptions using special error objects * Create bulletproof and reliable software by writing unit tests * Learn the common programming patterns and algorithms used in Python Who this book is for If you are relatively new to coding and want to write scripts or programs to accomplish tasks using Python, or if you are an object-oriented programmer for other languages and seeking a leg up in the world of Python, then this Learning Path is for you. Though not essential, it will help you to have basic knowledge of programming and OOP.

Jason and Whit Fireson, the notorious, bank-robbing duo known as the Firefly Brothers, wake to find themselves lying on cooling boards in a police morgue. Riddled with bullet wounds, the reality is inescapable: they've been killed. But they're alive. It is August of 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression but in the waning months of the great Crime Wave, during which the newly-created FBI killed such famous outlaws as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. Across the nation, men are out of work and families are starving, and Americans are stunned and frightened by the collapse of their country's foundations. The Firesons' lovers Darcy and Veronica struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that Jason and Whit have survived, while their stunned mother and straight-arrow third brother desperately try to support their family and evade police spies. And through it all the Firefly Brothers themselves race to find the women they love, and make sense of a world that has come unmoored. Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers combines the stark realism of a troubled time with all the myth-making magic of the American Dream itself. It is an imaginative and breathless story about being hopelessly outgunned – and tells a tale of danger, redemption, and love that transcends death.

Bringing together three favourite novels about Paddington, the beloved, classic bear from Darkest Peru. Book 1 - A Bear Called Paddington: Paddington Bear travels all the way from Darkest Peru and meets the Brown family on Paddington station for the first time. Since then the Browns’ lives have never been quite the same… for ordinary things become quite extraordinary when a bear called Paddington is around. Book 2 - More About Paddington: Whether he is attempting home decorating, detective work or photography, Paddington always causes his own special brand of chaos! Book 3 - Paddington Helps Out Somehow, trouble comes naturally to Paddington. What other bear could catch a fish in his hat, or cause havoc in the Browns’ kitchen just trying to be helpful? Paddington Bear has been delighting adults and children alike with his earnest good intentions and humorous misadventures for over fifty years.

Deadly Seven is a combination of monologues and ‘light’ script engagement of a psychologist with her seven clients, who each represent a deadly sin. Once the psychologist realises she lacks control over each of her clients’ lives, she decides to put an end to their madness. All characters represent an obsession which ultimately destroys them; leading to their deaths.

"Reportajele din aceast? carte vorbesc despre aspecte din istoria recent?, cum ar fi migra?ia, corup?ia, via?a ?n penitenciare sau problemele minorit??ilor, ?nchiderea spitalelor sau stresul care schimb? vie?i, crizele din s?n?tate, pove?ti ale unor oameni obi?nui?i, care fac lucruri speciale. Reg?sim, ?ns?, ?i pove?ti de demult, cum e cazul reportajelor despre lupt?torii anticomuni?ti din mun?i, despre tezaurul de la Pietroasele sau istoriile din satele s?se?ti. Reportajele surprind realit??i dintr-o Rom?nie aflat? ?n continu? schimbare, cu enorme discrepan?e. Sunt ca o fotografie a realit??ii. Cine le cite?te afl? cum se tr?ia sau cum se tr?ie?te ?n anumite locuri. Cum se schimb? sau de ce nu se schimb? lucrurile ?i mentalit??ile. Cartea cuprinde 30 de reportaje publicate ?n revista Dilema veche, dar ?i adapt?ri dup? reportaje sau documentare radio difuzate la Europa FM ?i Radio Rom?nia Actualit??i. Reportajul e un gen mai rar ?nt?lnit ast?zi ?n presa din Rom?nia. Dar asta nu se ?nt?mpl? din cauza lipsei de interes a publicului, ci din pricina lipsei de bani ?i de investi?ii ?ntr-o pres? de calitate. De fiecare dat? c?nd totu?i apar reportaje bine f?cute, se constat? c? publicul le urm?re?te cu interes, tot a?a cum urm?re?te reportajele ?i documentarele oferite de televiziunile str?ine. Asta fiindc? oamenii au nevoie de pove?ti. Un reportaj bine f?cut este de fapt o poveste adev?rat?. P?n? la urm?, ?i aceast? carte este o carte cu pove?ti adev?rate." (Liliana Nicolae)

A classic recipe book which excludes ingredients harmful to those suffering from candida, M.E., and allergy sufferers.

A bewitching comic fantasy by a master of the supernaturalCat doesn't mind living in the shadow of his sister, Gwendolen, the most promising young witch ever seen on Coven Street. But trouble starts brewing the moment the two orphans are summoned to live in Chrestomanci Castle. Frustrated that the witches of the castle refuse to acknowledge her talents, Gwendolen conjures up a scheme that could throw whole worlds out of whack.

Claire and her mother are running out of time, but they don't know it. Not yet. Claire is wrapped up with the difficulties of her bourgeoning adulthood—boys, school, friends, identity; Claire's mother, a single mom, is rushed off her feet both at work and at home. They rarely find themselves in the same room at the same time, and it often seems that the only thing they can count on are notes to each other on the refrigerator door. When home is threatened by a crisis, their relationship experiences a momentous change. Forced to reevaluate the delicate balance between their personal lives and their bond as mother and daughter, Claire and her mother find new love and devotion for one another deeper than anything they had ever imagined. Heartfelt, touching, and unforgettable, Life on the Refrigerator Door is a glimpse into the lives of mothers and daughters everywhere. In this deeply touching novel told through a series of notes written from a loving mother and her devoted fifteen-year-old daughter, debut author Alice Kuipers deftly captures the impenetrable fabric that connects mothers and daughters throughout the world. Moving and rich with emotion, Life on the Refrigerator Door delivers universal lessons about love in a wonderfully simple and poignant narrative.

His father and uncles are enchanters, his mother a powerful sorceress, yet nothing seems magical about Christopher Chant except his dreams. Night after night, he climbs through the formless Place Between and visits marvelous lands he calls the Almost Anywheres. Then Christopher discovers that he can bring real, solid things back from his dreams. Others begin to recognize the extent of his powers, and they issue an order that turns Christopher's life upside down: Go to Chrestomanci Castle to train to be the controller of all the world's magic.The Lives of Christopher Chant is the adventure-filled story of the boyhood of Chretomanci, the famous magician who also appears in Charmed Life, Witch Week, and The Magicians of Caprona.

‘One of the best stories I’ve read in a long time!’ Stacey Rebecca (NetGalley reviewer) The Cotswolds Cookery Club was originally published as a three-part serial. This is the complete story in one package. The Cotswolds Cookery Club is opening its doors! Connie has had enough. Enough of the city, enough of her job – and most importantly, enough of her cheating boyfriend! Finally free to chase her dreams, Connie sets up her very own Cotswolds Cookery Club – a place to share scrumptious recipes and, more importantly, a lot of wine… Trish always dreamed of living in a little chocolate box village – but she never expected to be starting over at forty. Could joining the Cookery Club be the perfect distraction from her stroppy teenage daughter and her ex-husband’s new girlfriend? Kate spends her life juggling her three young children and running the busy Cotswolds veterinary practice. It’s time to take charge of the disparate ingredients of her life and transform them into the perfect pot-au-feu! But with three delicious men turning up the heat, perhaps the sleepy Cotswolds village has a few surprises in store… Fans of Milly Johnson, Caroline Roberts and Jill Mansell will love this heartwarming read!

This treasury of all-new true miracle stories from the bestselling authors of Christmas Miracles, The Magic of Christmas Miracles, and Mothers' Miracles offers the real-life wonder their readers have come to love. Some highlights:A disk jockey's selection of music has an astounding unintended effect a comatose Polish woman begins to softly sing along with a song from her childhood.While body surfing, a man is slammed by a wave and hears his neck snap. Unable to move, he begins to swallow water to hasten death. Instead, he feels himself lifted from the water, gliding safely to shore.A school janitor befriends a student, only to learn that she is the daughter of his long-lost son and his very own granddaughter.A Gift of Miracles, like its predecessors, will remind readers and their families that in the midst of our hectic and sometimes frightening world, magic, mystery, and miracles happen. And that if we look hard enough in the corners of our own lives, we, too, can find miracles.

Marina Tsvetaeva: The Essential Poetry includes translations by Michael M. Naydan and Slava I. Yastremski of lyric poetry from all of great Modernist Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva’s published collections and from all periods of her life. It also includes a translation of two of Tsvetaeva’s masterpieces in the genre of the long poem, “Poem of the End” and “Poem of the Mountain.” The collection strives to present the best of Tsvetaeva’s poetry in a small single volume and to give a representative overview of Tsvetaeva’s high art and development of different poetic styles over the course of her creative lifetime. Also included in the volume are a guest introduction by eminent American poet Tess Gallagher, a translator’s introduction and extensive endnotes. Naydan and Yastremski have previously published a well-received annotated translation of Tsvetaeva’s collection After Russia with Ardis Publishers. The fourteen previously published translations from the After Russia collection have been revised for this volume.

Having spent years in a coma, a female protagonist is anxious to lead a normal life. Her miraculous recovery is riddled with falling in and out of our time continuum - she wanders through history in her imagination as if it were her backyard. Notwithstanding her condition, her peers are going through a real change of their own echoing events that engulfed Russia in the past few decades. In Multiple Personalities, life is a masquerade and its participants are characters from classic world literature racing towards destination unknown. The question they all are asking is whether the traditional notion of time's flow from the past to the future is the correct one. Who has the answer?

Maria Rybakova’s Gnedich captures the reader’s attention in its first stanzas with a striking allusion to Homeric Greece: “The rage that killed so many/the wretched rage of Achilles/who knew that he would perish/ that he would perish young. This is a novel-in-verse about the first Russian translator of the Iliad, the romantic poet and librarian Nikolai Gnedich (1784-1833). Since Gnedich spent almost his entire life translating Homer’s epic poem, Maria Rybakova has chosen verse as the most appropriate stylistic means in recreating his life. To the English-speaking world, this genre of poetic biography is best exemplified by Ruth Padel’s Darwin – A Life in Poems. Like the Iliad itself, the novel consists of twelve Songs or Cantos, and covers the life of Gnedich from his childhood to his death. It depicts the lives of Gnedich and his best friend, the poet Batyushkov, who is slowly losing his sanity, and incorporates motifs from their poetry, from Homer’s epics, and from Greek mythology, as well as magnificent images of imperial Russia and the Homeric world. The space of the novel covers snowy Russian villages, aristocratic St. Petersburg salons, magnificent Italian landscapes, and the austere Greece of Homer’s heroes. Rybakova conjures a fittingly romantic vision of the dramatic lives of Gnedich and his best friend. A major part of the novel is the moving correspondence between the two poets. Philosophical reflections on the fate of the individual are intertwined with poignant stanzas devoted to the great but unhappy love to the tragic actress Ekaterina Semyonova that consumed Gnedich. The novel culminates in Batyushkov’s final breakdown in the lunatic asylum and Gnedich’s ruminations on Russia’s tragic future fate. The poetic language of Gnedich is refined: it combines the clarity of Rybakova’s syllabic verses and the sophistication of her metaphors with distinct, novelistic depictions of certain landscapes, people, and their interactions. The novel is spectacularly designed: Rybakova’s style resembles a movie projection with stop-cards at the key moments in Gnedich’s life, his long conversations with his friend, and particular striking sceneries. It creates a novelistic effect on the tale about Gnedich’s life, spanning over twenty years. The narrative is often interrupted by streams of consciousness and reminiscence by its main heroes. At the same time, it continues the traditions of Russian classic literature with its attention to detail and the psychology of the characters. A significant part of the novel is dedicated to the description of Gnedich’s friendship with Konstantin Batyushkov, a talented poet of the Pushkin epoch. Gnedich, disfigured by a childhood disease, was a librarian at the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg and became famous through his translation of the Illiad. Batyushkov, an officer of the Russian Imperial court who participated in military campaigns, as well as one of the best poets of the beginning of the 19th century, went through deep crisis and mental illness. The friendship between the two becomes one of the themes within the novel. Rybakova builds the novel-in-verse’s plot around Gnedich’s translation of the Illiad into Russian. The narrative progresses from the adult Gnedich’s recollection of his childhood in a small country estate in Ukraine in the first Song, his illness and discovery of the magnificent Greek epic about the siege of the Troy that changed his life forever, to the completion of his work on his translation as a final victory over his life’s circumstances. The titanic work on the translation continued for almost twenty-two years (1807-29).

Zinaida Tulub’s novel The Exile is one of the most brilliant works in the canon of fiction about Taras Shevchenko, the outstanding Ukrainian poet and artist. The idea of writing about Taras Shevchenko first occurred to her when she was in her thirties, during a period spent living in exile in Kazakhstan (1947-1956). Initially, Tulub worked on the screenplay for a film called Kobzar and Yakin, which can be seen as an early prototype for the novel. She was only able to start work on the latter after her return to Kiev in 1956, when she was granted access to archival material and memoirs. She completed the novel in 1962. Tulub’s primary goal in the novel was to celebrate Taras Shevchenko’s indomitable will and his burning desire to fight for the liberation of the nation, even when he was in exile. Armed with a wealth of detailed biographical information about Shevchenko, Zinaida Tulub created a thrilling portrait of the poet that is both historically accurate and artistically convincing. Depicting the first period of Shevchenko’s exile in a detailed, comprehensive manner, Zinaida Tulub adheres strictly to the historical timeline, tracing step by step the path that fate had in store for the exiled poet. She doesn’t leave out a single detail from Shevchenko’s life, adding light and shade to every important moment or turning point along that treacherous path.