About the book: 2014 / Published half a century ago, Albertine Sarrazin’s autobiographical novel “My Name is Astragal” went around the whole world. Written in prison, where she spent several years and where she was sentenced more than once for prostitution and theft, it brought her real fame. Raised by foster parents—she never knew her real ones—Albertine ran away from a school for difficult-to-educate people at the age of sixteen and tried to survive in Paris by all permitted and unlawful means. And all this time, in captivity and in freedom, she wrote. The confession came shortly before his death. Having released three bestsellers in a row, Albertine Sarrazin died at the age of thirty from a medical error, not having lived even a year after the publication of the last part of the trilogy. All the events discussed in the novel are genuine. Escape from prison, life outside the law, mad love against the backdrop of prison memories and the constant fear of being behind bars again are described with the utmost sincerity. And interest in the book does not fade after so many years. It was recently republished in France, England, the USA and a dozen other countries, where readers are rediscovering this little masterpiece.