The Crime of Olga Arbyelina

First edition in English. 8vo. Pp. [vii], 247. Quarter-bound black cloth over yellow paper boards, stamped in gilt to spine; red endpapers. Deckled fore-edges.

Signed by Author to title page.

Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan. Originally published by Mercure de France in 1998, as Le crime d'Olga Arbélina.

Author's third book to appear in English. In the summer of 1947 in a sleepy French town, an elegant beauty rumoured to be a member of the royal family is accused of the murder of a fellow Russian émigré. Himself, a Russian émigré in France since 1987, Makine had to present his first manuscripts as translations from his mother tongue to overcome publishers' scepticism over his near-faultless French as a newly arrived exile. The author grew up bilingual thanks to an elderly French nanny who took care of him since the age of four. Makine was elected to the Académie française in March 2016, succeeding the late Assia Djebar. "Structured like a crime novel, but told in the language of a poet..." –Figaro littéraire