The Life of an Unknown Man

One night in St Petersburg, two men meet, both adrift in the brash new Russia: Shutov, a writer visiting after years of exile in Paris, and Volsky, an elderly survivor of the Siege of Leningrad and Stalin s purges. His life story one of extreme suffering, courage and an extraordinary love he considers unremarkable. To Shutov it is a revelation, the tale of an unsung hero that puts everything into perspective and suggests where true happiness lies.

“'told with an intimacy made potent by Makine's lyrical, spare prose and Strachan's lucid translation... reconnects both the reader and the protagonist with Russia's blood soaked history, to startling effect'”

Beautifully crafted and unashamedly romantic, building from an intimate love story something far more ambitious and universal - worthy of a place with the Russian greats. - Sunday Tasmanian

'It reiterates the author's passionate attachment to Russia, and his determination to celebrate individual humanity while excoriating the oppressive politics that have shaped our present reality. - The Canberra Times

Andrei Makine is a Russian living in Paris and writing in French, but his great 19thcentury forebears are everywhere in this book. - The Age

Makine's laconic, sardonic portrait of the new Russia is laced with fury...a bold and eloquent novel - Helen Dunmore, Guardian

Makine is a consummate literary artist, but he is teacher as well as storyteller and, best of all, enchanter - Allan Massie, Scotsman

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

A powerful, thoughtful book about the reliability of memory and how time mutates the meaning of both literature and history. - Tina Jackson, Metro

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

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.

One night in St Petersburg, two men meet, both adrift in the brash new Russia: Shutov, a writer visiting after years of exile in Paris, and Volsky, an elderly survivor of the Siege of Leningrad and Stalin s purges. His life story one of extreme suffering, courage and an extraordinary love he considers unremarkable. To Shutov it is a revelation, the tale of an unsung hero that puts everything into perspective and suggests where true happiness lies.

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