Andreï Makine
Author of Dreams Of My Russian Summers: A Novel
About the Author
Andrei Makine was born in Siberia in 1957. Although raised in the Soviet Union, he learned about France and came to love that country through the stories told by his French grandmother. He now lives in Paris himself, having been granted political asylum by France in 1987, and writes in French. His show more grandmother figures prominently in the autobiographical novel, "Dreams of My Russian Summers," for which Makine received both the Goncourt Prize and the Medicis Prize, becoming the first author to simultaneously receive both of these prestigious French awards. In the U.S., the English translation of "Dreams of My Russian Summers" has also received recognition, including the Boston Book Review Fiction Prize and the Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year award. Andrei Makine is also the author of "Once Upon the River Love" and "The Crime of Olga Arbelina." (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Andreï Makine
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Makine, Andreï
- Other names
- Osmonde, Gabriel (pseudonym)
- Birthdate
- 1957-09-10
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Université de Kalinine (Littérature française)
Université d'État de Moscou (Doctorat ∙ Littérature française)
Université de la Sorbonne, Paris (Littérature russe, 1992) - Occupations
- author
- Organizations
- Université de Novgorod , Russie
Lycée Jacques-Decour, Paris, France
Science Politique,Paris, France
École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Académie française (Fauteuil N°5, 2016-03-03) - Awards and honors
- Prix Prince Pierre de Monaco (2005)
- Relationships
- Aucouturier, Michel (Directeur de thèse)
- Short biography
- Andreï Makine est un écrivain d'origine russe et de langue française.
Dans les années 1980, il obtient un doctorat de l'Université d'État de Moscou après avoir déposé une thèse sur la littérature française contemporaine. Il collabore à la revue Littérature contemporaine à l'étranger (Cовременная художественная литература за рубежом), et enseigne la philologie à l'Université de Novgorod.
Au cours d'un voyage en France en 1987, il obtient l'asile politique, puis devient professeur de langue et de culture russes à Sciences Po et à l'École normale supérieure.
En 1990, il publie son premier roman, "La fille d'un héros de l'Union soviétique". Deux ans plus tard, il dépose une thèse de doctorat à la Sorbonne consacrée à l'œuvre de l'écrivain russe Ivan Bounine (1870-1953).
Il obtient la reconnaissance du public et de la critique avec son quatrième roman, "Le testament français", paru en 1995, pour lequel on lui décerne les prix Goncourt, Médicis et Goncourt des lycéens. L’obtention du Goncourt lui vaut, entre autres, d'obtenir la nationalité française en 1996, ce qui lui avait été préalablement refusé.
En 2001, il obtient le prix RTL-Lire pour "La Musique d'une vie" et, en 2005, le prix de la fondation Prince-Pierre-de-Monaco pour l'ensemble de son œuvre.
Toute l'œuvre d'Andreï Makine est écrite en français, sa langue seconde. Ses romans sont traduits dans plus d'une trentaine de langues.
En 2011, il révèle qu'il a publié des romans sous les noms de Gabriel Osmonde et Albert Lemonnier.
Le 3 mars 2016, il est élu membre de l'Académie française au premier tour, au fauteuil occupé précédemment par Assia Djebar.
Andreï Makine vit à Paris. - Nationality
- USSR (birth)
France - Birthplace
- Krasnoyarsk, Russia, USSR
- Places of residence
- Krasnoyarsk, Russia, USSR
Penza, USSR
France - Map Location
- France
Members
Discussions
Andrei Makine in Fans of Russian authors (December 2011)
Reviews
An incredibly beautiful book of personal history juxtaposed with world history set against the tumultuous backdrops of twentieth century France and Russia. The novel has a very distinct Proustian flavour in that:
- it explores memory through adolescent eyes,
- the protagonist has a close relationship with his grandmother,
- the book is originally in French,
- every line is so damn thoughtful that I've to read it twice.
It's about memory, the importance of storytelling (in particular the stuff show more that family lores are made of), and my personal favourite - the power of languages especially the dual (or more) personas that come from bilingualism (or multilingualism). And all this is reminisced in the author's hypnotic prose through the eyes of an adolescent beginning to grasp the nuances of / find his identity in his family and the world. An impossibly excellent gem of a book. show less
- it explores memory through adolescent eyes,
- the protagonist has a close relationship with his grandmother,
- the book is originally in French,
- every line is so damn thoughtful that I've to read it twice.
It's about memory, the importance of storytelling (in particular the stuff show more that family lores are made of), and my personal favourite - the power of languages especially the dual (or more) personas that come from bilingualism (or multilingualism). And all this is reminisced in the author's hypnotic prose through the eyes of an adolescent beginning to grasp the nuances of / find his identity in his family and the world. An impossibly excellent gem of a book. show less
Here is another unobtrusive masterpiece by Andrei Makine, but a masterpiece nevertheless. He never ceases to amaze me by his lyrical, touching prose, as well by his acute perceptiveness of the world in front of him. No matter what protagonist he chooses, I find myself always being able to relate to him - an uncanny reality.
Here a Soviet emigre, writer, slightly embittered by lack of recognition and disappointing private life (the latter a tad superfluous prelude, if you ask me - as if show more belonging to another book...), on a spur of the moment goes back to Russia (not Soviet Union any more) "... as a nostalgic pilgrim" after a 20 year absence and finds himself in "a geyser of energy, held in check for a long time. The frenzied search for a new logic to life after the highly logical madness of dictatorship.... there is also a confusion of styles, the disappearance of a way of life and barely the first babbling of a new manner of being... modernity gone mad, a mixture of American razzle-dazzle and Russian clowning". But in the midst of it all, he comes across a unique old man who tells him the story of his life, thus becoming the second protagonist... This life of the unknown man - during Leningrad blockade, war, labor camps and post-Stalin times - is so gripping in its poignant reality that it makes an irreversible impression on our writer. show less
Here a Soviet emigre, writer, slightly embittered by lack of recognition and disappointing private life (the latter a tad superfluous prelude, if you ask me - as if show more belonging to another book...), on a spur of the moment goes back to Russia (not Soviet Union any more) "... as a nostalgic pilgrim" after a 20 year absence and finds himself in "a geyser of energy, held in check for a long time. The frenzied search for a new logic to life after the highly logical madness of dictatorship.... there is also a confusion of styles, the disappearance of a way of life and barely the first babbling of a new manner of being... modernity gone mad, a mixture of American razzle-dazzle and Russian clowning". But in the midst of it all, he comes across a unique old man who tells him the story of his life, thus becoming the second protagonist... This life of the unknown man - during Leningrad blockade, war, labor camps and post-Stalin times - is so gripping in its poignant reality that it makes an irreversible impression on our writer. show less
I read Makine’s Music of a Life several months ago and concluded that despite the “exquisite writing” I couldn’t help but conclude that “somehow, and I’m honestly not quite sure how to explain it, ultimately I found the book left me wanting.” It was impressive but it didn’t stay with me. So I decided perhaps I ought to read this one, his fourth, but the one that brought him to the world’s attention and won both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Médicis. The writing is, again, show more quite impressive (though, truth to tell, I liked it better in Music of a Life), and so is the story. But this time he’s answered my objections. This one has more weight, more gravitas. It is, on the surface, a work of memory, an adult looking back and recalling his “Russian summers.” Summers spent with his grandmother in a remote Siberian village overlooking the steppes, summers spent listening to her stories of another world: Paris at the turn of the century. Stories of Proust, of Tsar Nicholas's visit to Paris in 1896, the great Paris flood of 1910, and of the death of French president Felix Faure in the arms of his mistress. Her stories aren’t all good and happy and filled with nostalgia and wistfulness. She also recounts the story of her husband and his fate—a victim of Stalin’s purges. She tells of famine and of misery, of the chaos of war. As someone wrote on GoodReads, this is a search for self through someone else’s memories. The book contains much more than my short summary suggests and though it can, at times, be a bit overwrought, I ultimately found it more affecting and more powerful than I had anticipated. show less
The Life of an Unknown Man: A Novel (Lannan Translation Selection (Graywolf Paperback)) by Andreï Makine
I highly recommend this novel, especially to readers who like anything related to Russia in the last two centuries. Makine weaves a beautiful tale out of the experiences of two men, one of whom you don't hear from until half-way through the novel. This is one of those few books that, when I had finished it, I started from the beginning again immediately.
One reviewer said that he thought the beginning section of the book was not that compelling, but I think that Makine writes it deliberately show more in this way for a reason. The arc of the novel as a whole reminds me of the movie, Local Hero (1983), in the sense that the protagonist is at first trapped in his current life but doesn't have a conscious grasp of his true predicament. He has to experience life in a turned-upside-down way in order to approach his own truths. show less
One reviewer said that he thought the beginning section of the book was not that compelling, but I think that Makine writes it deliberately show more in this way for a reason. The arc of the novel as a whole reminds me of the movie, Local Hero (1983), in the sense that the protagonist is at first trapped in his current life but doesn't have a conscious grasp of his true predicament. He has to experience life in a turned-upside-down way in order to approach his own truths. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 32
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 4,439
- Popularity
- #5,640
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 133
- ISBNs
- 353
- Languages
- 25
- Favorited
- 17
