"I didn't see myself saying that my mother was a saint": her parents, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia... Emmanuel Carrère explains himself on "Kolkhoze"
Interview In "Kolkhoz," the author of "A Russian Novel" and "Limonov," tells the story of his Russian and Georgian ancestors against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, while also painting a loving yet uncompromising portrait of his mother, academic Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, who died in 2023. He explains this masterful book, which will be one of the literary events of the new school year.
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On February 24, 2022, Emmanuel Carrère was scheduled to fly to Moscow at 11 a.m. Between two hearings in the November 13 attacks trial , which he was covering that year for "Le Nouvel Obs," he had planned to spend the weekend filming the adaptation of one of his books, "Limonov." Filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov was waiting for him. Everything was organized. But the writer didn't take his plane. Vladimir Putin's armies had just invaded Ukraine in the early hours. History, with its great bloody axe, had suddenly returned to Europe. Shock reigned, caution was called for. In the afternoon, however, a phone call to the newspaper: "Hello, it's Emmanuel. My agent advised me to stay in France, but in the end I'm going to take another flight. A great country that descends into war, that's a story to tell." » The weekend in Moscow lasted ten days. Carrère recounted it in a fantastic report , instantly translated into the biggest European newspapers. And three and a half years later, he details the behind-the-scenes events in "Kolkhoze."
"Kolkhoz," let's say, is a masterful book. That of a virtuoso storyteller at the height of his art, who knows how to tack, digress, and expound with magnetic naturalness to give his story the allure of a symphony whose different movements respond to, complement, and extend each other. It is no…
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