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A Life's Music: 'Moving, haunting . . . a mini-masterpiece' - William Boyd, Guardian
Andrei Makine, Andrei Makine
Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Fiction in translation
A magnificent story of courage and survival in the face of great adversity
In a snowbound railway station deep in the Soviet Union, a stranded passenger comes across an old man playing the piano in the dark, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. Once on the train to Moscow he begins to tell his story: a tale of loss, love and survival that movingly illustrates the strength of human resilience.
'A novella to be read in a lunch hour and remembered for ever' Jilly Cooper, Books of the Year, Sunday Telegraph
Praise for A Life's Music: 'Moving, haunting . . . a mini-masterpiece' - William Boyd, Guardian
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When I describe Andrei Makine as a great writer, this is no journalistic exaggeration but my wholly sincere estimate of a man of prodigious gifts. In his combination of clarity, concision, tenderness and elegiac lyricism, he is the heir to Ivan Bunin, the first Russian ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. - Francis King, Spectator
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Makine here is as good as Stendhal - or Tolstoy ... [he is] storyteller, teacher, and enchanter most of all. I would rather read him than anyone else now writing, and then reread him. I think this is his best book so far. - Allan Massie, Literary Review
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Makine's novellas are short in length but beautifully paced and filled with a lyricism that weaves reality and fantasy into a far bigger picture. Little wonder, then, that he's frequently likened to other Russian greats such as Nabokov and Chekhov ... an engrossing story of love, tragedy, betrayal and loss. Moving the plot forward effortlessly, he creates a mythic portrait of Communist Russia. - Scotsman
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Beautifully paced and filled with a lyricism that weaves reality and fantasy into a far bigger picture ... engrossing - Scotsman
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Geoffrey Strachan's strong and graceful translation of a novel written in French manages to let its Russian soul shine through. "A Life's Music" exchanges the lushness of Makine's earlier work ... for the fiercer pleasures of concise storytelling. This is Makine's art - Ann Harleman, New York Times
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A Life's Music would make a terrific Tom Hanks movie. The tagline could be lifted straight from the book's jacket. A tale of war, heartbreak and survival. Both powerful and graceful, it has...depth and scope. - Scotland On Sunday
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With matchless delicacy and economy ... Makine presents a movingly detailed history of survival, adaption and bitter disillusionment ... perfectly conceived and controlled. Its graceful narrative skilfully blends summarized action with powerfully evocative images charged with strong understated emotion ... masterly - Kirkus Reviews
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[An] elegant, heart-rending little gem of a work ... entirely fresh and necessary. Highly recommended. - Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (New York)
Andrei Makine
AndreA Makine was born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1957, but sought asylum in France in 1987. While initially sleeping rough in Paris he was writing his first novel, A HERO'S DAUGHTER, which was eventually published in 1990 after Makine pretended it had been translated from the Russian, since no publisher believed he could have written it in French. With his third novel, ONCE UPON A RIVER LOVE, he was finally published as a 'French' writer, and with his fourth, LE TESTAMENT FRANCAIS, he became the first author to win both of France's top literary prizes, the Prix Goncourt and Prix MA dicis. Since then AndreA Makine has written THE CRIME OF OLGA ARBYELINA, REQUIEM FOR THE EAST, A LIFE'S MUSIC, which won the Grand Prix RTL-Lire, THE EARTH AND SKY OF JACQUES DORME, THE WOMAN WHO WAITED, HUMAN LOVE and THE LIFE OF AN UNKNOWN MAN.
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