Human Love

As a child, Elias Almeida loses both his parents during the Angolan uprising against colonial rule. As an adult and professional revolutionary, he bears witness to mankind at its pitiless worst. Yet he continues to believe in a better world and in the redeeming power of love even though he cannot be with the woman he loves, who rescued him from thugs one snowy night on the streets of Moscow. Spanning forty years of Africa s past as a battleground between East and West, this powerful novel explores the heights and depths of human nature as it tells a profoundly affecting story of sacrifice and idealism.

“'Wonderful . . . his work is exhilarating'”

A vivid and deeply felt novel... Makine's talents and dedication to his vision are beyond question. - The Sydney Morning Herald

'Fully compelling' - The Weekend Australian

Andrei Makine's 10th novel offers a powerful meditation on the price of ideology and the nature of love. - Sunday Tasmanian

A powerful meditation on the price of ideology and love . . . The novel, remorseless in its depiction of man s inhumanity, is poetically alive to the redeeming power of love. - Eithne Farry, Daily Mail

A beautiful, haunting fugue that carries the weight of decades of suffering on a continent that the West prefers to romanticise or ignore . . . [Makine's] reputation as one of the significant novelists of our age is only strengthened by this book. - Stephanie Merritt, Observer

Andrei Makine has exceptional gifts for getting to the heart of true feeling . . . HUMAN LOVE is a haunting, often very tender story written in a kind of meditative fury . . . one of the best novels about Africa in a long time - Christopher Hope, Guardian

All his books are wonderful . . . But HUMAN LOVE, full of feeling, wisdom and tenderness amidst horror, is one of his best. If you ever despair of modern literature, read Makine. - Allan Massie, Scotsman

Makine looks reality in the face and yet retains a belief in beauty and the transforming power of love - Allan Massie chooses his book of 2008 for the Spectator

Andrei Makine was born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1957, but has lived in France since 1987. While initially sleeping rough in Paris he wrote his first novel, A HERO'S DAUGHTER, which was eventually published in 1990 after Makine had to pretend it had been translated from the Russian. 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.

As a child, Elias Almeida loses both his parents during the Angolan uprising against colonial rule. As an adult and professional revolutionary, he bears witness to mankind at its pitiless worst. Yet he continues to believe in a better world and in the redeeming power of love even though he cannot be with the woman he loves, who rescued him from thugs one snowy night on the streets of Moscow. Spanning forty years of Africa s past as a battleground between East and West, this powerful novel explores the heights and depths of human nature as it tells a profoundly affecting story of sacrifice and idealism.

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