The name of this "successful" poet and turn-coat of Russian extraction does not tell you much, but her words define her as someone who knows a taste of the Great: 'I remember the first book that set my soul on fire was Turgenev's masterpiece 'First Love'', she said, adding: 'Reading the author's description of how the male protagonist falls in love for the first time, those emotions resonated with me so strongly, it was as if a hand reached out from the past and it has stayed with me ever since.