The Kingdom of Heaven for Me

Young writer Vera buries her grandmothers, who replaced her parents. She often thinks about divorce but doesn't dare to change until she is diagnosed with "malignant lung tumor." Vera doesn't know what the outcome of the operation will be or if she will see her little son grow up, but she decides to fight until the end.
"The Kingdom of Heaven for Me" is a hybrid of several genres: personal story, classical prose about nature, and essay writing. At the center of the narrative is movement as a process and a path: from illness to remission, from a doomed marriage to choosing oneself, from vulnerability to the return of inner balance. Speaking about cancer, Vera Bogdanova places her own experience in a broader context of the nature of the midlands of Russia. Pine forests, fields, rivers, and summer houses become a living space of memory, a reminder of how important it is to cherish the time granted to us.