Jilted by his girlfriend and disillusioned by modern France, the writer Shutov revisits St Petersburg after twenty years in exile, hoping to reconnect with his roots and the woman he loved in his youth. But she, and the brash new Russia that greets him, are not what he was expecting at all. Then he encounters Volsky, a fellow relic of the Communist era who relates his story: of surviving the Siege of Leningrad, the march on Berlin and Stalin's purges, and of a transcendent love affair. It is a tale of extraordinary endurance and courage, yet the old man considers himself unexceptional. Fortunate, too, for he and the woman he loved knew great happiness. To Shutov, his story comes as a revelation, and an inspiration. In this powerful and moving novel, Andrei Makine explores what truly matters in life through the prism of Russia's past and present. Drawing on his own experience of growing up in the Soviet Union, he poses an unsettling question: for all its horrors, was life under Communism richer than it is now? In the story of just another unknown, unsung hero lies an answer...
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Andrei Makine was born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1957, but has lived in France since 1987. With his fourth novel, LE TESTAMENT FRANCAIS, he became the first author to win both of France's top literary prizes, the Prix Goncourt and Prix Medicis. It has gone on to sell over a million copies and be translated into 28 languages. Since then Andrei Makine has written five novels, including A LIFE'S MUSIC, which won the Grand Prix RTL-Lire.
Thrilling...Makine's most beautiful novel since Le Testament Francais * Le Figaro * His novels possess an eerie beauty invariably capable of surpassing the polemic...If he has an artistic kindred spirit it is most probably the South African Nobel laureate JM Coetzee * Eileen Battersby, Irish Times * A powerful, thoughtful book about the reliability of memory and how time mutates the meaning of both literature and history. * Tina Jackson, Metro * Seamlessly translated by Geoffrey Strachan, Makine's novel explores the attempt of two 'ordinary' people to transcend suffering and find life's essential meaning. It is difficult to write without sentimentality about such a subject, but Makine's intelligence and truthfulness dismiss banality. * Pamela Norris, Literary Review * Makine is a consummate literary artist, but he is teacher as well as storyteller and, best of all, enchanter * Allan Massie, Scotsman * Like all his work, this novel has a wonderful flavour of a contemporary Checkhov with a splash of Proust...What starts out an intimate account bursts out into something more ambitious and universal. Ultimately it's a haunting story, beautifully told. * Viv Groskop, Observer * Makine's laconic, sardonic portrait of the new Russia is laced with fury...a bold and eloquent novel * Helen Dunmore, Guardian *
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