Andrei Makine has exceptional gifts for getting to the heart of true feeling. His new novel, Human Love, is audacious even by his own standards, examining the paradox that, set beside savagery, love may seem a frail thing; yet without it, life is often little more than manipulation and murder. Human Love tells the story of the affair between a black Angolan revolutionary and a Russian woman who saves him from racist thugs in Moscow. Makine's coup is to measure this secret lifelong affair against the very public rape of Africa.
ANDREI MAKINE first burst into prominence on the French literary scene in 1995 -- the year when his fourth novel, Le Testament Francais, won not one but three major prizes, and the spontaneous applause not only of the critics but of the reading public. In Le Testament Francais, Makine told more than an extraordinary coming-of-age story. His exploration of the links between France and Russia, between the Russian and French languages, his evocation of Soviet life in the 1960s and 1970s, the haunting images of both the Siberian steppe and Belle Epoque Paris, a deft handling of plot (including a stunning ending), a vivid delineation of character, and his haunting prose, full of the music and light of language, were those of a true original outsider, yet one who somehow seemed to give heart to many French readers. The novel illuminated the spirit of France itself, yet remained true to its Russian, indeed, Siberian inspiration as well.
When I arrive at the Basil Hotel in Knightsbridge and ask for Andrei Makine, the Russian writer, there is some confusion. There is, they assure me, no Russian by that name in residence. But after a flurry of calls a French gentleman is brought to meet me. It is an understandable mistake. Andrei Makine, lanky, soft-spoken and with a neat beard drenched in after-shave, does not correspond to anyone's stereotype of a Russian. And it is not a coincidence that he should be taken for French. He was born, raised and educated in the Soviet Union. But he is arguably the finest, and unquestionably the most successful, French writer to have emerged this decade.
