"A Mind Purified by Suffering:" Evgenia Ginzburg's "Whirlwind" Memoirs is the first book on Ginzburg's Journey into the Whirlwind and Within the Whirlwind, covering such topics as: memory, trauma, motherhood, love, survival strategies, and metafictional structures. It also provides a history of prison camp writings, her biography, and an interview with her son Vasily Aksenov.