Many writers and artists have undertaken the difficult task of recreating the image of Lenin for their contemporaries and future generations. The Blue Notebook by the well-known Soviet author Emmanuil Kazakevich (1913-1962) has become one of the most popular books about Lenin. A notebook in a blue cover actually did exist. In it Lenin jotted down notes for his famous book State and Revolution which he worked on in the difficult days preceding the Great October Socialist Revolution. At the time Lenin was in hiding at Razliv Station, from where he directed the preparations for the armed uprising. "He was a passionate traveler, a hunter, a crack shot, a top-notch driver, the life of the party, witty and full of fun... Moreover, he was a truly courageous soldier." This portrait of Kazakevich was drawn by his contemporary and colleague, the writer Alexander Tvardovsky. During the Second World War Kazakevich, commander of a platoon, was asked to join the staff of the brigade newspaper. After working on the paper for a short while he asked to be transferred back to the front lines. "The front lines are important to me not only as a patriot, but as a writer," he said. Emmanuil Kazakevich was born in the Ukraine in 1913, the son of a teacher. His first book, a volume of poetry, was published in 1932. He translated the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Mayakovsky into Yiddish. Kazakevich's first prose work, The Star, is a harsh, yet sensitive war story which gained him world fame. This was followed by Spring on the Oder, Heart of a Friend, Two in the Steppe, The House on the Square, By the Light of Day and The Blue Notebook, the author's last work. Kazakevich was twice awarded the State Prize for Literature.

"Judith Arcana's remarkable feat in Hello. This is Jane. is to paint, tile by tile, a complex mosaic of compelling linked stories- children's playgrounds and adult tattoo parlors, ill-advised lovers and underground abortion activists. In the mainstream and on the edges, you'll feel the urgency of the struggle for reproductive justice as you turn these pages." -Cindy Cooper, Founding Director of Words of Choice and The Reproductive Freedom Festival, Judith Arcana has taught and written about motherhood and reproductive justice for decades. The prose and poetry of Our Mothers' Daughters, Every Mother's Son, and What if your mother are feminist classics. The stories in this new collection, rooted in her experience as a Jane in Chicago's pre-Roe v. Wade underground abortion service, were written as the United States has moved relentlessly into constraining motherhood and denying reproductive justice. By necessity, these stories reach from the past into the future, offering history and hope. "I'm profoundly grateful to Judith Arcana for writing these vital, electrifying stories. With abortion rights in America being stripped away-state by state, clinic by clinic-we need to hear from those who've fought this battle before. Arcana is a Jane; her work in the pre-Roe abortion underground has provide the seeds for her fiction, stories rooted in essential history to spark action in our terrifying present." -Leni Zumas, Author of Red Clocks