An unsparingly truthful account of love, betrayal and the traps we set for ourselves.
In work after work, the critically acclaimed author Emmanuel Carrere has trained his unblinking gaze on the lives of others as they fight a losing battle with that most fearsome of adversaries - the self. Now, determined to escape the bleak visions of his narratives, he takes on a film project in the heart of Russia while also embarking on a new love affair back home in Paris. But soon enough, the diversion he seeks eludes him, intimacy proves too arduous, and Carrere is left peering into the dark mirror of his own life.
Set in Paris and Kotelnich, a small post-Soviet town, A Russian Novel traces Carrere's pursuit of two obsessions - the disappearance of his Russian grandfather and his erotic fascination with a woman he loves but cannot keep from destroying. In prose that is elegant and passionate, Carrere weaves the strands of his story into a travelogue of a journey inward. Road trip, confession, erotic tour de force - this fearless reckoning illuminates the schemes we devise to evade ourselves and the inevitable payment they exact.
Writer, scriptwriter and film producer Emmanuel Carrere was born in Paris in 1957. Much of his writing centers around several primary themes : the interrogation of identity, the development of illusion and the direction of reality, like for instance in La Classe de neige (Prix Femina 1995), La Moustache and L'Adversaire. Several of his books have been made into films; in 2005, he directed the film adaptation of his novel La Moustache. Translations of his work have been published in thirty languages.