A Captive Spirit shows Marina Tsvetaeva’s genius at the peak of its power. The selections are from her mature period, the 1930s, and include almost all of her autobiographical writings, her major literary portraits, and her literary criticism. Tsvetaeva composed her prose to be read aloud, and these essays, full of extraordinary vitality, reflect the urgency of one who writes to discover the essential truths hidden in the past. A Captive Spirit is a remarkable collection of work from, as Vladimir Nabokov described her, "a writer of genius."