Who is the author of the book "My Armenian Friend"? Details about Andreï Makine (video)
Russian writer Andreï Makine became famous in Europe sooner and more than in his homeland. The writer was born in Krasnoyarsk. He started writing during the “Perestroyka”. He was taught French by his grandmother, who came to Russia before the 1917 revolut
Makine was homeless in Paris, even spending nights in Père Lachaise cemetery. To earn money, he taught Russian and wrote novels in French. But French publishers constantly rejected the Russian writer. They were sure that a Russian could not write French well. “I was doing everything to get published. I sent the same manuscript to publishers with different titles and different pseudonyms." French publishers eventually agreed. Andreï Makine's first books were published and in 1995, he received the Prix Goncourt for the book "Le testament français".
For the first time in the history of French literature, it was awarded to a Russian writer. The president of the Goncourt Academy called Makine's novel "Great Literature". Andreï Makine immediately became one of the famous figures of European literature. He received another honorary award for the same novel: the Prix Médicis.
The award-winning novel has been translated into 35 languages, with a circulation of 2.5 million copies. After those awards, Andreï Makine became a French citizen and did his PhD at the Sorbonne. Makine is also a member of the French Academy since 2016 (he holds the 5th chair). Makin, who left the Soviet Union in the 1980s due to his political views, has an anti-American position today. 20 years ago, he told a French journalist that Yeltsin, who was always drunk, was a disaster for the country because he had a nuclear button in his hand.
"I hoped that Russia would be more rational and pragmatic in the future. The journalist titled his article "Makine defends Putin's pragmatism". And when I became a member of the French Academy, they wrote that "Putin's henchman Makine is in the French Academy." This is very convincing evidence that we live in a world of lies."
In an interview with "Le Figaro" in 2022, the author of the book "My Armenian Friend" said that the European continent is a living treasure that needs to be saved. Meanwhile, Europeans, he said, unfortunately, prefer the diametrically opposite option, banning Dostoevsky's works and waging war. Meanwhile, according to Makin, this approach guarantees the destruction of all of us, because no one will win.
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