A HERO'S DAUGHTER (First UK edition and first edition in English)

Andreï Makine (Translated from the Russian by Geoffrey Strachan)

ISBN 10: 0340751274 / ISBN 13: 9780340751275

Published by Sceptre (An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton), London, 2004

About this Item

First impression of the first edition in English, with full number-string sequence including the no. "1": 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 on the printer's page. Translated from the Russian by Geoffrey Strachan. ***Near fine in black cloth-covered boards with silver titles to the spine. The boards are clean and unmarked. Edges of boards just slightly rubbed. No reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. Page block edges clean. Internally also near fine with no inscriptions. Pages bright. No foxing. No creases or tears. ***In a near fine colour-illustrated dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of £16.99. No creases, chips or tears. Dustwrapper clean and bright. ***224mm x 138mm. 163 pages. ***'During World War II Ivan Demilov is made a Hero of the Soviet Union, the Red Army's highest award for bravery, and an honour that secures him both society's respect and some modest privileges. But by the time perestroika dawns in the Eighties, the glory of Soviet victory has faded from the collective memory and Ivan begins to lose his way in the new, forward-looking climate. ***In contrast, Ivan's daughter Olya appears to be thriving: as an interpreter with the Moscow International Trade Centre she has access to a prosperous, metropolitan lifestyle far beyond her parent's dreams. But Olya's work is not all it seems, and she slowly begins to realise that for her the price of success may be higher than she is willing to pay.' ***'Masterly' Paul Bailey, Independent Books of the Year - Review quote about A Life's Music. (Quote and review quote taken from the dustwrapper). ***'Andrei Sergeevich Makin is a French novelist. He also publishes under the pseudonym Gabriel Osmonde. Andreï Makine was born in Krasnoyarsk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union on 10 Sep 1957 and grew up in the city of Penza about 700 kilometres (435 mi) south-east of Moscow. As a boy, having acquired familiarity with France and its language from his French-born grandmother (it is not certain whether Makine had a French grandmother; in later interviews, he claimed to have learned French from a friend), he wrote poems in both French and his native Russian. In 1987, he went to France as a member of a teacher's exchange program and decided to stay. He was granted political asylum and was determined to make a living as a writer in French. However, Makine had to present his first manuscripts as translations from Russian to overcome publishers' skepticism that a newly arrived exile could write so fluently in a second language. Makine's novels include "Dreams of My Russian Summers" (1995) which won two top French awards, the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Médicis. He was elected to seat 5 of the Académie Française on 3 March 2016, succeeding Assia Djebar.' (Wiki) ***First impression of the first UK edition, and first edition in English, in its original dustwrapper in near fine condition. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.

Seller Inventory # 4146

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A HERO'S DAUGHTER (First UK edition and first edition in English)
• Publisher: Sceptre (An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton), London
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340751274
• ISBN 13: 9780340751275
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition in English
• Printing: First Impression
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • First Editions
  • Literature in Translation

About this title

Synopsis

In World War II Ivan Demidov won the Red Army's highest award for bravery, that of Hero of the Soviet Union. But the decades following the War have brought him a life of hardship, alleviated only by his pride in this achievement and the modest privileges granted to War veterans. His daughter, Olya, on the other hand, born in 1961 and trained as a linguist, takes up a post as an interpreter at Moscow's International Business Center with access to a metropolitan lifestyle beyond the dreams of her parents. The only catch is that her job involves servicing foreign businessmen around the clock and passing on information about them to the KGB. This is a stunning drama of disillusionment and tension between the two generations: the one that grew up under Stalin and saw its faith in him crumble and the one that grew up under Brezhnev, fixated on the glamour of the West and its material goods. Makine's vivid and authentic evocation of daily life in post-war Soviet Russia matches in its intensity the portraits of nineteenth-century Russian life offered by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

About the Author

Born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1957, Andrei Makine has lived in France since seeking asylum there in 1987. Daughter Of A Soviet Hero, his first novel, was originally published in French in 1990 and was followed by Confessions Of A Lapsed Standard Bearer and Once Upon The River Love. Then in 1995 his fourth novel, Le Testament Francais, became the unprecedented winner of both the Prix Goncourt and Prix Medicis and has gone on to sell over a million copies in France alone, and to be published in translation in twenty-nine countries. Its translation into English by Geoffrey Strachan, published by Sceptre in 1997, also won the Scott Moncrieff Prize. Since then Andrei Makine has published The Crime Of Olga Arbyelina, Requiem For The East and A Life's Music, published in France in 2001 where it won the Grand Prix RTL-Lire..