Imprint
- Sceptre
Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Fiction in translation
An astounding novel that penetrates the 20th-century experience, from one of Europe's most feted authors
In present-day France a Russian writer recalls his harsh childhood at a Stalingrad orphanage in the 1960s and the old Frenchwoman, a family friend, whose tales fed his dreams of a better world. One story in particular has stayed with him: that of her brief, passionate affair, during World War II, with the French fighter pilot Jacques Dorme, who subsequently died in a plane crash in the Siberian mountains. So the narrator decides to retrace Jacques Dorme's steps, beginning a journey which leads him not only to revisit the land of his birth but also to see his adopted homeland in an unflattering new light. A profound and moving novel about the dangers of ideology and of war, delivered with humour, sensuousness and great lyricism.
Praise for The Earth and Sky of Jacques Dorme
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The year's finest novel . . . a truly remarkable achievement. Makine will surely one day win the Nobel Prize. - Francis King, Books of the Year, Spectator
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Undisputedly a novelist of genius . . . a remarkable work - Spectator
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One of the most extraordinary novels I've read for a long time . . . endlessly fascinating and beautifully written - Sunday Herald
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Hold[s] the reader in an emotional captivity from which there is no escape till long after the book has been put down - Andrey Kurkov, Guardian
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This is a novel to read, and read again, with ever-deepening admiration. - Allan Massie, Literary Review
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One of the greatest European novelists of our time . . . When you leave a Makine novel, you are simultaneously bereft and enriched. - Herald
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With remarkable concision, he takes what could be vast and weighty topics - nationality, identity, memory and truth - and creates a series of unforgettable images and incidents. - Daily Mail
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'I was mightily impressed by The Earth and Sky of Jacques Dorme . . . it's beautifully crafted and still resonates. A modern masterpiece." - George Rosie, Books of the Year, Sunday Herald
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