Music of a Life

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Music of a Life
First English edition
AuthorAndreï Makine
Original titleLa Musique d'une vie
TranslatorGeoffrey Strachan
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
PublisherÉditions du Seuil (France)
Arcade Books (UK)
Publication date
2001
Pages132
ISBN9782020483438

Music of a Life (French: La Musique d'une vie) is a 2001 novella by the French writer Andreï Makine. A tale of Soviet oppression, it tells the story of a talented Russian piano player who has to abandon his career right before his first concert, flees to the countryside and adopts the identity of a dead soldier.

Reception[edit]

Publishers Weekly wrote: "It's a simple story, but Makine's lovely lyric writing—excellently translated—in which the scenes are imagined with a sharply cinematic focus, gives it considerable depth and emotion; the quiet ending, back in the present time, is wrenching."[1]

The book was awarded the Grand prix RTL-Lire.[2]

References[edit]