"In truth, of course, it is not possible for us to creep into a little street boy's head. But I want us to try. I want to invite the reader into Timur's story, just as Timur invited me into his life; the life of a boy who has seen little good, and who can't get rid of his memories."

So writes Åsne Seierstad in this article in the Guardian on The Angel of Grozny, her new book on Chechnya.

Ten years after her first assignment in the region, Åsne returned to Chechnya and realised it was the stories of the children caught in the conflict that gripped her.

"You can try to count the dead. You can argue about the numbers. You can count the maimed. You can argue about those numbers, too. What does it matter to lose a leg. An arm. To become crippled. To become blind. To have your hearing blasted away.

Where in the statistics do you find a violated childhood?"

Åsne will be appearing on the BBC Radio Five Live Simon Mayo programme on March 4th, listen again on the BBC website.

Read Asne's Sunday Times interview.

Read an extract from The Angel of Grozny.