A Hero's Daughter by Andreï Makine
In World War II Ivan Demidov won the Red Army's highest award for bravery, that of Hero of the Soviet Union. But the decades following the War have brought him a life of hardship, alleviated only by his pride in this achievement and the modest privileges granted to War veterans. His daughter, Olya, on the other hand, born in 1961 and trained as a linguist, takes up a post as an interpreter at Moscow's International Business Center with access to a metropolitan lifestyle beyond the dreams of her parents. The only catch is that her job involves servicing foreign businessmen around the clock and passing on information about them to the KGB. This is a stunning drama of disillusionment and tension between the two generations: the one that grew up under Stalin and saw its faith in him crumble and the one that grew up under Brezhnev, fixated on the glamour of the West and its material goods. Makine's vivid and authentic evocation of daily life in post-war Soviet Russia matches in its intensity the portraits of nineteenth-century Russian life offered by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.
A remarkable novel.. enormously powerful * Daily Mail *
An astonishingly mature and accomplished work ... What sets it apart is a wonderful and extraordinary ability to give us the very texture of life in a few spare sentences * Allan Massie, Scotsman *
[It] carries the unmistakable stamp of historical and human truth ... subtle and powerful * Jessica Mann, Sunday Telegraph *
Heartbreaking * Philip Delves Broughton, Daily Telegraph *
It is only 163 pages ... but this is also nothing less than the history of Russia from the German invasion in 1941 to Gorbachev and glasnost ... Even in this starkly grim story Makine strains hard to believe that life, however ghastly, brings moments of tranquillity and peace. * Spectator *
Makine's voice is authentic, his writing deft. He knows what he is writing about and does so with conviction ... shows the qualities that later won him both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Medicis. * Financial Times *
[A] beautifully realised tale ... palpable and deeply moving * Ink *
Anyone struggling to understand the moral labyrinth that contemporary Russia has become would do well to read this book. * Independent on Sunday *
An astonishingly mature and accomplished work ... What sets it apart is a wonderful and extraordinary ability to give us the very texture of life in a few spare sentences * Allan Massie, Scotsman *
[It] carries the unmistakable stamp of historical and human truth ... subtle and powerful * Jessica Mann, Sunday Telegraph *
Heartbreaking * Philip Delves Broughton, Daily Telegraph *
It is only 163 pages ... but this is also nothing less than the history of Russia from the German invasion in 1941 to Gorbachev and glasnost ... Even in this starkly grim story Makine strains hard to believe that life, however ghastly, brings moments of tranquillity and peace. * Spectator *
Makine's voice is authentic, his writing deft. He knows what he is writing about and does so with conviction ... shows the qualities that later won him both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Medicis. * Financial Times *
[A] beautifully realised tale ... palpable and deeply moving * Ink *
Anyone struggling to understand the moral labyrinth that contemporary Russia has become would do well to read this book. * Independent on Sunday *
Born in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia in 1957, Andreï Makine has lived in France since seeking asylum there in 1987. His first novel, A Hero's Daughter, was published in 1990 and was followed by Confessions of a Lapsed Standard-Bearer and Once Upon the River Love. In 1995 his fourth novel, Le Testament Français, won both the Prix Goncourt and Prix Médicis and its translation into English by Geoffrey Strachan also won the Scott Moncrieff Prize. Since then Andreï Makine has published The Crime of Olga Arbyelina, Requiem for the East and A Life's Music, which won the French Grand Prix RTL-Lire.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780340751282 |
| ISBN 10 | 0340751282 |
| Title | A Hero's Daughter |
| Author | Andre? Makine |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Year published | 2005-01-17 |
| Number of pages | 176 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |