A magnificent story of courage and survival in the face of great adversity

'A mini-masterpiece'
William Boyd, Guardian
'Remarkable'
Daily Telegraph

'Unforgettable'
Mail on Sunday

'Prodigious'
Spectator

'Perfect'
Daily Mail

In a snowbound railway station deep in the Soviet Union, a stranded passenger comes across an old man playing the piano in the dark, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. Once on the train to Moscow he begins to tell his story: a tale of loss, love and survival that movingly illustrates the strength of human resilience.

'A very short novel that contains multitudes . . . profound, moving, haunting - full of resonances that are even more valid in today's fraught times'
William Boyd, Guardian

'A masterpiece, a novella to be read in a lunch hour and remembered for ever'
Jilly Cooper, Sunday Telegraph

Avoiding a heavy-handed treatment of Russian history, in little more than 100 pages Makine succeeds not only in condensing the life and loves of one man, but in capturing the fear that pervaded everyday life in Stalin's Soviet Union. It is the perfect riposte to anyone who believes that great Russian literature must be unwieldy and crammed with a cast of thousands