A Russian exile living in a Paris cemetery, Makine's haunting autobiographical novel is a collection of childhood and adolescent memories. Through Charlotte, his half-French grandmother with her suitcase full of stories, he learns what it was like to live in Stalin's Russia and it is she who changes his perspective of everything. Written in French, it was only when he pretended his work was translated from Russian that he was published in France.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 67 Winter 2013 ) |
