In the descendants of Pasternak and of Soljenitsyne, a moving work which calls, by the favour of the writing, the destinies of a family on three generations. Chosen for the Guardian First Book Award, evidence as deep as harrowing, the flamboyant column of the Russian XXth century, through unforgettable stories of survival and of redemption.
Born in London, of a Russian mother and an English father, Owen Matthews studied history to the university of Oxford before starting journalist's career. He is currently managing editor of Newsweek in Moscow.
Novel of Owen Matthews
Editions Belfond
:: History::
In the middle of post communist Moscow of 1990s, the young reporter find the trace of his and this existence which haunts him
Ascent and fall of his grandfather, Boris Bibikov, pure homosexual sovieticus, hero of the tragic collectivisation of the beginning of Stalinist epoch, victim of the redemptions of 1937. The Odyssey of his mother, Lyudmila, delivered in three years barely in the chaos of World War II, separated from his sister in the course of their escape across the Russian steppes, overcrowded orphanages in insalubrious hospitals. The drama of these lovers taken in the storm of Cold War: Mervyn, his father, an Englishman russophile who had dared to refuse the advances of the KGB, and Lyudmila, become a bright intellectual dissident.
Across six years of correspondence passionate in her parents, the file from NKVD of his grandfather and his own restless wandering in a decadent capital, it is the duality which Owen Matthews is going to discover, with this part of Russia which lives in her, haunts it and forces him to write sources: Belfond 2009
