Product details
- ISBN 9781914495458
- Weight: 165g
- Dimensions: 128 x 196mm
- Publication Date: 09 Nov 2023
- Publisher: Headline Publishing Group
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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'Powerful, poignant, perfectly-pitched . . . It's a short tale of great significance. I found it unforgettable. . . a fine piece of writing' Michael Palin
In this inspiring story, Andreï Makine looks back on a childhood friendship which changed his life. Set in 1970s Siberia, in the declining years of the Soviet Empire, My Armenian Friend offers a poignant evocation of ordinary lives as well as a window into Makine's own evolution as a writer.
In an orphan school, a young Russian boy befriends Vardan, an Armenian child who, because mature and sensitive, is tormented by schoolyard bullies. When the Russian boy meets Vardan's Armenian family, he falls under their spell. In his eyes, their home is a kingdom transported from afar, which is adorned, aromatic, and beautiful despite how little the family possesses. Their neighbourhood is in a place of exile but is one of community, made up of former prisoners, exhausted adventurers and others who have been uprooted from their homes. As he grows closer to Vardan, the Russian boy learns to recognise a people forced indefinitely to live on the margins, but who, despite persecution, hold on to their culture and cherish the memories they have of their homeland and its history. Even in a brutally inhospitable Siberia, they recreate a transformative "kingdom of Armenia".
Russian-born Andreï Makine is the author of Le Testament Francais (Dreams of my Russian Summers) (1995), his fourth novel and the first book to win both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Medicis. All of Makine's novels have been translated into English by Geoffrey Strachan. Makine was elected to seat 5 of the Académie Française on March 3, 2016, succeeding Assia Djebar.
Geoffrey Strachan is best known for his renderings of the novels of Andreï Makine. He has translated works by Yasmina Reza (author of Art), Elie Wiesel, Jerome Ferrari and Nathacha Appanah. He has won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize (for French translation) and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize (for German translation).
