Russian novelist who is compared to Stendhal, Tolstoy and Proust
So classical in form and so precise in execution are Andreï Makine's novels of Russia that one half expects their author to be a kind of glittering book-world fossil, as old as the 20th century, wizened from a lifetime of unpacking the tragic ironies of communism in gorgeously intricate prose miniatures.
Makine has been compared to Stendhal, Tolstoy and Proust; our best historians of the Soviet era queue up to pronounce him one of the finest living writers on the period; and he is regularly tipped to be among the contenders for the next Nobel in literature.
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