The Life of an Unknown Man

A deeply moving meditation on memory, history, love, and art by the author of Dreams of My Russian Summers

In The Life of an Unknown Man, Andrei Makine explores what truly matters in life through the prism of Russia’s past and present.

Shutov, a disenchanted writer, revisits St. Petersburg after twenty years of exile in Paris, hoping to recapture his youth. Instead, he meets Volsky, an old man who tells him his extraordinary story: of surviving the siege of Leningrad, the march on Berlin, and Stalin’s purges, and of a transcendent love affair. Volsky’s life is an inspiration to Shutov – because for all that he suffered, he knew great happiness. This depth of feeling stands in sharp contrast to the empty lives Shutov encounters in the new Russia, and to his own life, that of just another unknown man …